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CONTENTS. 


Sign op the Four. 

Chap. I. The Science of Deduction 1 

II. The Statement of the Case 13 

III. In Quest of a Solution 21 

IV. The Story of the Baldheaded Man .... 28 

V. The Tragedy of Pondicherry Lodge ... 43 

\ 1. Sherlock Holmes gives a Demonstration. . 53 

VII. The Episode of the Barrel 64 

VIII. The Baker Street Irregulars 81 

IX. A Break in the Chain 95 

X. The End of the Islander 109 

XI. The Great Agra Treasure 133 

XII. The Strange Story of Jonathan Small . . 130 

A Scandal in Bohemia 167 

A Case of Identity 203 

My Friend the Murderer . 231 

The Ring of Thoth 259 

The Surgeon of Gaster Fell. ......... 287 

John Huxford’s Hiatus 833 


4 



✓ 

t ■ 



THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


CHAPTER 1. 

THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION, 

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner 
of the mantel-jjiece and his hypodermic syringe 
from its neat morocco case. W ith his long, white, 
nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and 
rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time 
his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy fore- 
arm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumer- 
able puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp 
point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sunk 
back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh 
of satisfaction. 

Three times a day for many months I had wit 
nessed this performance, but custom had not recon- 
ciled my mind to it. On the contrary, from day to 
day I had become more irritable at the sight, and 
my conscience swelled nightly within me at the 
thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. 
Again and again I had registered a vow that 1 
should deliver my soul upon the subject, but there 


I 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my com. 
panion which made him the last man with whom 
one would care to take anything approaching to a 
liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, 
and the experience which I had had of his many 
extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and 
backward in crossing him. 

Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the 
claret which I had taken with my lunch, or the 
additional exasperation produced by the extreme 
deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I 
could hold out no longer. 

“ Which is it to-day ? ” I asked. “ Morphine or 
cocaine ? ” 

He raised his eyes languidly from the old black- 
letter volume which he had opened. ‘‘ It is cocaine,” 
he said; “a seven per cent, solution. Would you 
care to try it ? ” 

“ No, indeed,” I answered, brusquely. “ My con- 
stitution has not got over the Afghan campaign 
yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain 
upon it.” 

He smiled at my vehemence. “ Perhaps you are 
right, Watson,” he said. “I suppose that its influ- 
ence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so 
transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the 
mind that its secondary action is a matter of small 
moment.” 

“ But consider ! ” I said, earnestly. “ Count the 
cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and 
excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process, 
which involves increased tissue-change, and may at 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


3 


last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, 
what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the 
game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, 
for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those 
great powers with which you have been endowed ? 
Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to 
another, but as a medical man to one for whose 
constitution he is to some extent answerable.” 

He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he 
put his finger-tips together and leaned his elbows 
on the arms of his chair, like one who has a relish 
for conversation. 

“ My mind,” he said, rebels at stagnation. Give 
me problems, give me work, give me the most ab- 
struse crj^ptogram, or the most intricate analysis, 
and I am in my own proper atmosphere, I can dis- 
pense them with artificial stimulants. But I abhor 
the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental 
exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own 
particular profession — or rather created it, for I am 
the only one in the world.” 

“ The only unofficial detective ? ” I said, raising 
my eyebrows. 

“ The only unofficial consulting detective,” he 
answered. “ I am the last and highest court of ap- 
peal in detection. When Gregson, or Lestrade, or 
Athelney Jones are out of their depths — which, by 
the way, is their normal state — the matter is laid 
before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and 
pronounce a specialist’s opinion. I claim no credit 
in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. 
The work itself^ the pleasure of finding a field for 


4 


THE SIGN OF TH^ FOUR. 


my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. But you 
have yourself had some experience of my methods 
of work in the Jefferson Hope case.” 

“ Yes, indeed,” said I, cordially. I was never 
so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied 
it in a smd.ll brochure with the somewhat fantastic 
title of ‘ A Study in Scarlet.’ ” 

He shook his head sadly. “ I glanced over it,” 
said he. “ Honestly, I cannot congratulate you 
upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact 
science, and should be treated in the same cold and 
unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge 
it with romanticism, which produces much the same 
effect as if you worked a love story or an elopement 
into the fifth proposition of Euclid.” 

“ But the romance was there,” I remonstrated. 
“ I could not tamper with the facts.” 

“ Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a 
just sense of proportion should be observed in treat- 
ing them. The only point in the case which de- 
served mention was the curious analytical reasoning 
from effects to causes by which I succeeded in un- 
raveling it.” 

I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which 
had been specially designed to please him. I con- 
fess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which 
seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet 
should be devoted to his own special doings. More 
than once during the years that I had lived with 
him in Baker Street I had observed that a small 
vanity underlay my companion’s quiet and didactic 
manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nurs- 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


5 


ing my wounded leg. I had had a Jezail bullet 
through it some time before, and though it did not 
prevent me from walking, it ached wearily at every 
change of the weather. 

“ My practise has extended recently to the Con- 
tinent,” said Holmes, after a while, filling up his 
old brier-root pipe. “ I was consulted last week by 
Franpois le Yillard, who, as you probably know, 
has come rather to the front lately in the French 
detective service. He has all the Celtic power of 
quick intuition, but he is deficient in the wide range 
of exact knowledge which is essential to the higher 
developments of his art. The case was concerned 
with a will, and possessed some features of interest. 
I was able to refer him to two parallel cases ; the 
one at Riga in 1857, and the other at St. Louis in 
1871, which have suggested to him the true solution. 
Here is the letter which I had this morning ac- 
knowledging my assistance.” He tossed over, as 
he spoke, a crumpled sheet of foreign note-paper. 
I glanced my eyes down it, catching a profusion 
of notes of admiration, with stray “ magnifiques,” 
“ coup-de-maitres,” and “ tours-de-force,” all testi- 
fying to the ardent admiration of the French- 
man. 

‘‘ He speaks as a pupil to his master,” said I. 

“ Oh, he rates my assistance too highly,” said 
Sherlock Holmes, lightly. “ He has. considerable 
gifts himself. He possesses two out of the three 
qualities necessary for the ideal detective. He has 
the power of observation and that of deduction. 
He is only wanting in knowledge ; and that may 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


come in time. He is now translating my small 
works into French.” 

“ Your works ? ” 

“ Oh, didn’t you know ? ” he cried, laughing. 
“Yes, I have been guilty of several monographs. 
They are all upon technical subjects. Here, for 
example, is one ‘ Upon the Distinction Between the 
Ashes of the Various Tobaccoes.’ In it I enumerate 
a hundred and forty forms of cigar, cigarette, and 
pipe tobacco, with colored plates illustrating the 
difference in the ash. It is a point which is con- 
tinually turning up in criminal trials, and which is 
sometimes of supreme importance as a clew. If 
you can say definitely, for example, that some mur- 
der has been done by a man who was smoking an 
Indian lunkah, it obviously narrows your field of 
search. To the trained eye there is as much differ- 
ence between the black ash of a Trinchinopoly and 
the white fluff of bird’s-eye as there is between a 
cabbage and a potato.” 

“ You have an extraordinary genius for minutiae,” 
I remarked. 

“ I appreciate their importance. Here is my 
monograph upon the tracing of footsteps, with 
some remarks upon the uses of plaster of Paris as a 
preserver of impresses. Here, too, is a curious little 
work upon the influence of a trade upon the form 
of the hand, with lithotypes of the hands of slaters, 
sailors, cork-cutters, compositors, weavers, and dia- 
mond-polishers. That is a matter of great practical 
interest to the scientific detective — especially in 
cases of unclaimed bodies, or in discovering the 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 

antecedents of criminals. But I weary you with 
hobby.” 

“ Not at all,” I answered, earnestly. “ It is ^ 
the greatest interest to me, especially since I ha 
had the opportunity of observing your practical ap 
plication of it. But you spoke just now of obser- 
vation and deduction. Surely the one to some 
extent implies the other.” 

“ Why, hardly,” he answered, leaning back luxuri- 
ously in his armchair, and sending up thick blue 
wreaths from his pipe. ‘‘ For example, observation 
shows me that you have been to the Wigmore Street 
Post-Office this morning, but deduction lets me know 
that when there you despatched a telegram.” 

“ Eight ! ” said I. “ Eight on both points ! But 
I confess that I don’t see how you arrived at it. It 
was a sudden impulse upon my part, and I have 
mentioned it to no one.” 

“ It is simplicity itself,” he remarked, chuckling 
at my surprise ; “ so absurdly simple that an ex- 
planation is superfluous ; and yet it may serve to 
define the limits of observation and of deduction. 
Observation tells me that you have a little reddish 
mold adhering to your instep. Just opposite the 
Wigmore Street Office they have taken up the 
pavement and thrown up some earth which lies in 
such a way that it is difficult to avoid treading in it 
in entering. The earth is of this peculiar reddish 
tint which is found, so far as I know, nowhere else 
in the neigliborhood. So much is observation. The 
rest is deduction.” 

“ How, then, did you deduce the telegram ? ” 


THE SIGN OP THE POUR. 


Why, of course I knew that you had not written 
^ letter, since I sat opposite to you all the morning. 
I see also in your open desk there that you have a 
sheet of stamps and a thick bundle of post-cards. 
What could you go into the post-office for, then, but 
to send a wire ? Eliminate all other factors, and 
the one which remains must be the truth.” 

“ In this case it certainly is so,” I replied, after a 
little thought. “ The thing, however, is, as you say, 
of the simplest. Would you think me imperti- 
nent if I were to put your theories to a more severe 
test ? ” 

“ On the contrary,” he answered, “ it would pre- 
vent me from taking a second dose of cocaine. I 
should be delighted to look into any problem which 
you might submit, to me.” 

“ I have heard you say that it is difficult for a 
man to have any object in daily use without leav- 
ing the impress of his individuality upon it in such 
a way that a trained observer might read it. Now, 
I have here a watch which has recently come into 
my possession. Would you have the kindness to let 
me have an opinion upon the character or habits of 
the late owner ? ” 

I handed him the watch with some slight feeling 
of amusement in my heart, for the test was, as I 
thought, an impossible one, and I intended it as a 
lesson against the somewhat dogmatic tone which 
he occasionally assumed. He balanced the watch in 
his hand, gazed hard at the dial, opened the back, 
and examined the works, first with his nakod eyes 
and then with a powerful convex lens. I could 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


9 

hardly keep from smiling at his crestfallen face, 
when he finally snapped the case to and handed it 
back. 

“There are hardly any data,” he remarked. 
“ The watch has been recently cleaned, which robs 
me of my most suggestive facts.” 

“ You are right,” I answered. It was cleaned 
before being sent to me.” In my heart I accused 
my companion of putting forward a most lame and 
impotent excuse to cover his failure. What data 
could he expect from an uncleaned watch ? 

“ Though unsatisfactory, my research has not 
been entirely barren,” he observed, staring up at the 
ceiling with dreamy, lack-luster eyes. “ Subject to 
your correction, I should judge that the watch be- 
longed to your elder brother, who inherited it from 
your father.” 

“ That you gather, no doubt, from the H. W. upon 
the back ? ” 

“Quite so. The W. suggests your own name. 
The data of the watch is nearly fifty years back, 
and the initials are as old as the watch ; so it was 
made for the last generation. Jewelry usually de- 
scends to the eldest son, and he is most likely to 
have the same name as his father. Your father 
has, if I remember right, been dead many years. 
It has, therefore, been in the hands of your eldest 
brother.” 

“ Eight, so far,” said I. “ Anything else ? ” 

“He was a man of untidy habits — very untidy 
and careless. He was left with good prospects, but 
he threw away his chances, lived for some time in 


10 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


poverty, with occasional short intervals of prosperity, 
and finally, taking to drink, he died. That is all I 
can gather.” 

I sprang from my chair and limped impatiently 
about the room with considerable bitterness in my 
heart. 

“ This is unworthy of you, Holmes,” I said. I 
could not have believed that you would have de- 
scended to this. You have made inquiries into the 
history of my unhappy brother, and you now pre- 
tend to deduce this knowledge in some fanciful way. 
You cannot expect me to believe that you have 
read all this from his old watch ! It is unkind, 
and, to speak plainly, has a touch of charlatanism 
in it.” 

“ My dear doctor,” said he kindly, “ pray accept 
my apologies. Viewing the matter as an abstract 
problem, I had forgotten how personal and painful 
a thing it might be to you. I assure you, however, 
that I never even knew that you had a brother 
until you handed me the watch.” 

“ Then how in the name of all that is wonderful 
did you get all these facts ? They are absolutely 
correct in every particular.” 

“ Ah, that is good luck. I could only say what 
was the balance of probability. I did not at all ex- 
pect to be so accurate.” 

“ But it was not mere guess-work ? ” 

“ No, no ; I never guess. It is a shocking habit — 
destructive to the logical faculty. "What seems 
strange to you is only so because you do not follow 
my train of thought or observe the small facts upon 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. H 

which large inferences may depend. For example, 
I began by stating that your brother was careless. 
When you observe the lower part of that watch* 
case you notice that it is not only dented in two 
places, but it is cut and marked all over from the 
habit of keeping other hard objects, such as coins 
or keys, in the same pocket. Surely it is no great 
feat to assume that a man who treats a fifty-guinea 
watch so cavalierly must be a careless man. Neither 
is it a very far-fetched inference that a man who 
inherits one article of such value is pretty well 
provided for in other respects.” 

I nodded to show that I followed his reasoning. 

It is very customary for pawnbrokers in Eng- 
land, when they take a watch, to scratch the number 
of the ticket with a pin-point upon the inside of the 
case. It is more handy than a label, as there is no 
risk of the number being lost or transposed. There 
are no less than four such numbers visible to my 
lens on the inside of this case. Inference — ^that 
your brother was often at low water. Secondary 
inference — that he had occasional bursts of pros- 
perity, or he could not have redeemed the pledge. 
Finally, I ask you to look at the inner plate which 
contains the keyhole. Look at the thousands of 
scratches all round the hole — marks where the key 
has slipped. What sober man’s key could have 
scored those grooves? But you will never see a 
drunkard’s watch without them. He winds it at 
night, and he leaves these traces of his unsteady 
hand. Where is the mystery in all this ? ” 

It is as clear as daylight,” I answered. “ I re. 


13 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


gret the injustice which I did you. I should hare 
had more faith in your marvelous faculty. May I 
ask whether you have any professional inquiry on 
foot at present? ” 

“ None^ Hence the cocaine. I cannot live with- 
out brain-work. What else is there to live for? 
Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, 
dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow 
fog swirls down the street and drifts across dun- 
colored houses. What could be more hopelessly 
prosaic and material ? What is the use of having 
powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which 
to exert them ? Crime is commonplace, and exist- 
ence is commonplace, and no qualities save those 
which are commonplace have any function upon 
earth.” 

I had opened my mouth to reply to his tirade, 
when, with a crisp knock, our landlady entered, 
bearing a card upon a brass salver. 

‘‘ A young lady for you, sir,” she said, addressing 
my companion. 

“ Miss Mary Morstan,” he read. “ Hum ! I have 
no recollection of that name. Ask the young lady 
to step up, Mrs. Hudson. Don’t go, doctor. I pre- 
fer that you remain.” 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


13 


CHAPTEE II. 

THE STATEMENT OF THE CASE. 

Miss Mokstan entered the room with a firm step 
and an outward composure of manner. She was a 
blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and 
dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, how 
ever, a plainness and simplicity about her costume 
which bore with a suggestion of limited means. 
The dress was a somber grayish beige, untrimmed 
and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the 
same dull hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white 
feather in the side. Her face had neither regularity 
of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her ex- 
pression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue 
eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic. In 
an experience of women which extends over many 
nations and three separate continents I have never 
looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of 
a refined and sensitive nature. I could not but ob- 
serve that, as she took the seat which Sherlock 
Holmes placed for her, her lip trembled, her hand 
quivered, and she showed every sign of intense in- 
ward agitation. 

“ I have come to you, Mr. Holmes,” she said, “ be- 
cause you once enabled my employer, Mrs. Cecil 


14 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Forrester, to unravel a little domestic complicatioa 
She was much impressed by your kindness and skill.” 

“Mrs. Cecil Forrester,” he repeated, thoughtfully. 
“ I believe that I was of some slight service to her. 
The case, however, as I remember it, was a very 
simple one.” 

“ She did not think so. But, at least, you cannot 
say the same of mine. I can hardly imagine any- 
thing more strange more utterly inexplicable, than 
the situation in which I find myself.” 

Holmes rubbed his hands and his eyes glistened. 
He leaned forward in his chair with an expression 
of extraordinary concentration upon his clear-cut, 
hawk like features. “ State your case,” said he, in 
brisk business tones. 

I felt that my position was an embarrassing one. 
“You will, I am sure, excuse me,” I said, rising 
from my chair. 

To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved 
hand to detain me. “If your friend,” she said, 
“ would be good enough to stay, he might be of in- 
estimable service to me.” 

I relapsed into my chair. 

“Briefly,” she continued, “the facts are these. 
My father was an officer in an Indian regiment, who 
sent me home when I was quite a child. My mother 
was dead, and I had no relative in England. I was 
placed, however, in a comfortable boarding establish- 
ment at Edinburgh, and there I remained until I 
was seventeen years of age. In the year 1878 my 
father, who was senior captain of his regiment, o^ 
tained twelve-months’ leave and came home. He 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


15 


telegraphed to me from London that he had arrived 
all safe, and directed me to come down at once, 
giving the Langham Hotel as his address. His mes- 
sage, as I remember, was full of kindness and love. 
On reaching London I drove to the Langham, and 
was informed that Captain Morstan was staying 
there, but that he had gone out the night before 
and had not returned. I waited all day without 
news of him. That night, on the advice of the man- 
ager of the hotel, I communicated with the police, 
and next morning we advertised in all the papers. 
Our inquiries led to no result ; and from that day to 
this no word has ever been heard of my unfortunate 
father. He came home, with his heart full of hope, 
to find some peace, some comfort, and instead — ” 
She put her hand to her throat, and a choking sob 
cut short the sentence. 

“The date?” asked Holmes, opening his note- 
book. 

“ He disappeared upon the 3d of December, 1878 
— nearly ten years ago.” 

‘‘ His luggage ? ” 

“ Remained at the hotel. There was nothing in it 
to suggest a clew — some clothes, some books, and a 
considerable number of curiosities from the Anda- 
man Islands. He had been one of the officers in 
charge of the convict guard there.” 

“ Had he any friends in town ? ” 

“ Only one that we know of — Major Sholto, of his 
own regiment, the Thirty-fourth Bombay Infantry. 
The major had retired some little time before, and 
lived at Upper Norwood. We communicated with 


16 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


him, of course, but he did not even know that hia 
brother officer was in England.” 

“ A singular case,” remarked Holmes. 

“ I have not jet described to you the most singm 
lar part. About six years ago — to be exact, upon 
the 4th of May, 1882 — an advertisement appeared 
in the Times asking for the address of Miss Mary 
Morstan, and stating that it would be to her advan< 
tage to come forward. There was no name or ad« 
dress appended. I had at that time just entered tho 
family of Mrs. Cecil Forrester in the capacity of 
governess. By her advice I published my address 
in the advertisement column. The same day there 
arrived through the post a small card-box addressed 
to me, which I found to contain a very large and 
lustrous pearl. Ho word of writing was inclosed. 
Since then, every year upon the same date, there 
has always appeared a similar box, containing a simk 
lar pearl, without any clew as to the sender. They 
have been pronounced by an expert to be of a rare 
variety and of considerable value. You can see for 
yourselves that they are very handsome.” She 
opened a flat box as she spoke, and showed me six 
of the finest pearls that I had ever seen. 

“ Your statement is most interesting,” said Sher- 
lock Holmes. “ Has anything else occurred to 
you % ” 

“ Yes ; and no later than to-day. That is why 1 
have come to you. This morning I received this 
letter, which you will perhaps read for yourself.” 

“ Thank you,” said Holmes. ‘‘ The envelope, too, 
please. Postmark, London, S. W., date, July 7. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


17 

Hum ! Man’s thumb-mark on corner — probably 
postman. Best quality paper. Envelopes at six. 
pence a packet. Particular man in his stationary. 
No address. ‘ Be at the third pillar from the left 
outside the Lyceum Theater to-night at seven o’clock. 
If you are distrustful, bring two friends. You are a 
wronged woman, and shall have justice. Do not 
bring police. If you do, all will be in vain. Your 
unknown friend.’ Well, really, this is a very pretty 
little mystery. What do you intend to do, Miss 
Morstan ? ” 

That is exactly what I want to ask you.” 

“ Then we shall most certainly go. You and I 
and — ^yes, why, Doctor Watson is the very man. 
Your correspondent says two friends. He and I 
have worked together before.” 

“ But would he come ? ” she asked, with something 
appealing in her voice and expression. 

“ I should be proud and happy,” said I, fervently, 
‘‘ if I can be of any service.” 

“You are both very kind,” she answered. “I 
have led a retired life, and have no friends whom I 
could appeal to. If I am here at six it will do, I 
suppose ? ” 

“You must not be later,” said Holmes. “There 
is one other point, however. Is this handwriting 
the same as that upon the pearl-box addresses ? ” 

“ I have them here,” she answered, producing half 
a dozen pieces of paper. 

“ You are certainly a model client. You have the 
correct intuition. Let us see, now.” He spread 
the papers upon the table and sr^ive little darting 


18 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


glances from one to the other. “ They are disguised 
hands, except the letter,” he said, presently, “ but 
there can be no question as to the authorship. See 
how the irrepressible Greek e will break out, and 
see the twirl of the final s. They are undoubtedly 
by the same person. I should not like to suggest 
false hopes. Miss Morstan, but is there any resem- 
blance between this hand and that of your father \ ” 

“Nothing could be more unlike.” 

“I expected to hear you say so. We shall look 
out for you, then, at six. Pray allow me to keep 
the papers. I may look into the matter before them. 
It is only half-past three. Au revoir, then.” 

“ Au revoir,” said our visitor, and, with a bright, 
kindly glance from one to the other of us, she re- 
placed her pearl-box in her bosom and hurried away. 
Standing at the window, I watched her walking 
briskly down the street, until the gray turban and 
white feather were but a speck in the somber crowd. 

“ What a very attractive woman ! ” I exclaimed, 
turning to my companion. 

He had lighted his pipe again, and was leaning 
back with drooping eyelids. “Is she?” he said, 
languidly. “ I did not observe.” 

“ You really are an automaton — a calculating-ma- 
chine I” I cried. “There is something positively 
inhuman in you at times.” 

He smiled gently. “ It is of the first importance,” 
he said, “ not to allow your judgment to be biased 
by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit 
— a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities 
we antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure yoi^ 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


19 


that the most winning woman I ever knew was 
hanged for poisoning three little children for their 
insurance money, and the most repellent man of my 
acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent 
nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.” 

“ In this case, however ’’ 

“I never make exceptions. An exception dis- 
proves the rule. Have you ever had occasion to 
study character in handwriting? What do you 
make of this fellow’s scribble ? ” 

“ It is legible and regular,” I answered. “ A man 
of business habits and some force of character.” 

Holmes shook his head. “ Look at his long let- 
ters,” he said. “ They hardly rise above the com- 
mon herd. That d might be an «, and that I an e. 
Men of character always differentiate their long 
letters, however illegibly they may write. There 
is vacillation in his A;’s and self-esteem in his capi- 
tals. I am going out now. I have some few refer- 
ences to make. Let me recommend this book — one 
of the most remarkable ever penned. It is Win- 
wood Eeade’s ‘ Martyrdom of Man.’ I shall be 
back in an hour.” I sat in the window with the 
volume in my hand, but my thoughts were far from 
the daring speculations of the writer. My mind 
ran upon our late visitor — her smiles, the deep rich 
tones of her voice, the strange mystery which over- 
hung her life. If she were seventeen at the time of 
her father’s disappearance she must be seven-and- 
twenty now — a sweet age, when youth has lost its 
self-consciousness and become a little sobered by 
experience. So I sat and mused, until such danger- 


I 


20 the sign of the four. 

ous thoughts came into my head that I hurried 
away to my desk and plunged furiously into the 
latest treatise upon pathology. What was I, an 
army surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker bank- 
ing-account, that I should dare to think of such 
things ? She was a unit, a factor — nothing more. 
If my future were black, it was better surely to 
face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by 
mere will-o’-the wisps of the imagination. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


21 


CHAPTEE III. 

Iir QUEST OF A SOLUTION. 

It was half-past five before Holmes returned. 
He was bright, eager, and in excellent spirits — a 
mood which in his case alternated with fits of the 
blackest depression. 

“ There is no great mystery in this matter,” he 
said, taking the cup of tea which I had poured out 
for him. “ The facts appear to admit of only one 
explanation.” ‘ 

“ What ! you have solved it already ? ” 

“ Well, that will be too much to say. I have dis- 
covered a suggestive fact, that is all. It is, how- 
ever, ve^y suggestive. The details are still to be 
added. I have just found, on consulting the back 
files of the Times^ that Major Sholto of Upper Nor- 
wood, late of the Thirty-fourth Bombay Infantry, 
died upon the 28th of April, 1882.” 

“ I may be very obtuse. Holmes, but I fail to see 
what this suggests.” 

‘‘ Ho ? You surprise me. Look at it in this way, 
then. Captain Morstan disappears. The only per- 
son in London whom he could have visited is Major 
Sholto. Major Sholto denies having heard that he 
was in London. Four years later Sholto dies. 


22 


mE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Within a week of his deaths Captain Morstan’a 
daughter receives a valuable present, which is re* 
peated from year to year, and now culminates in a 
letter which describes her as a wronged woman. 
What wrong can it refer to except this deprivation 
of her father ? And why should the presents begin 
immediately after Sholto’s death, unless it is that 
Sholto’s heir knows something of the mystery, and 
desires to make compensation? Have you any 
alternative theory which will meet the facts ? ” 

“ But what a strange compensation 1 And how 
strangely made ! Why, too, should he write a letter 
now, rather than six years ago ? Again, the letter 
speaks of giving her justice. What justice can she 
have ? It is too much to suppose that her father is 
still alive. There is no other injustice in her case 
that you know of.” 

“ There are difficulties ; there are certainly diffi- 
culties,” said Sherlock Holmes, pensively. “ But 
our expedition of to-night will solve them all. Ah, 
here is a four-wheeler, and Miss Morstan is inside. 
Are you all ready ? Then we had bettei’ go down, 
for it is a little past the hour.” 

I picked up my hat and my heaviest stick, but I 
observed that Holmes took his revolver from his 
drawer and slipped it into his pocket. It was clear 
that he thought our night’s work might be a serious 
one. 

Miss Morstan was muffied in a dark cloak, and 
her sensitive face was composed, but pale. She 
must have been more than woman if she did not 
feel some uneasiness at the strange enterprise upon 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


23 


which we were embarking, yet her self-control was 
perfect, and she readily answered the few additional 
questions which Sherlock Holmes put to her. 

“ Major Sholto was .a very particular friend of 
papa’s,” she said. “ His letters were full of allu- 
sions to the major. He and papa were in command 
of the troops at the Andaman Islands, so they were 
thrown a great deal together. By the way, a curi- 
ous paper was found in papa’s desk which no one 
can understand. I don’t suppose that it is of the 
slightest importance, but I thought you might care 
to see it, so I brought it with me. It is here. ” 

Holmes unfolded the paper carefully and smoothed 
it out upon his knee. He then very methodically 
examined it all over with his double lens. 

“ It is paper of native Indian manufacture,” he 
remarked. “ It has at some time been pinned to a 
board. The diagram upon it appears to be a plan 
of part of a large building, with numerous halls, 
corridors, and passages. ^ At one point is a small 
cross done in red ink, and above it is ‘ 3.37 from 
left,’ in faded pencil-writing. In the left-hand cor- 
ner is a curious hieroglyphic, like four crosses in a 
line with their arms touching. Beside it is written, 
in very rough and coarse characters, ‘ The sign of 
the four — Jonathan Small, Mahomet Singh, Ab- 
dullah Khan, Dost Akbar.’ Ko, I confess that I do 
not see how this bears upon the matter! Yet it is 
evidently a document of importance. It has been 
kept carefully in a pocket-book ; for the one side is 
as clean as the other.” 

“ It was in his pocket-book that we found it,” 


24 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ Preserve it carefully, then, Miss Morstan, for it 
may prove to be of use to us. I begin to suspect 
that this matter may turn out to be much deeper 
and more subtle than I at first supposed. I must 
reconsider my ideas.” He leaned back in the cab, 
and I could see by his drawn brow and his vacant 
eye that he was thinking intently. Miss Morstan 
and I chatted in an undertone about our present 
expedition and its possible outcome, but our com- 
panion maintained his impenetrable reserve until 
the end of our journey. 

It was a September evening, and not yet seven 
o’clock, but the day had been a dreary one, and a 
dense, drizzling fog lay low upon the great city. 
Mud-colored clouds drooped sadly over the muddy 
streets. Down the Strand the lamps were but misty 
splotches of diffused light which threw a feeble 
circular glimmer upon the slimy pavement. The 
yellow glare from the shop-windows streamed out 
into the steamy, vaporous air, and threw a murky, 
shifting radiance across the crowded thoroughfare. 
There was to my mind something eerie and ghost- 
like in the endless procession of faces which fiitted 
across these narrow bars of light — sad faces and 
glad, haggard and merry. Like all human kind, 
they flitted from the gloom into the light, and so 
back into the gloom once more. I am not subject 
to impressions, but the dull, heavy evening, with 
the strange business upon which we were engaged, 
combined to make me nervous and depressed. I 
could see from Miss Morstan’s manner that she was 
jimffering from the same feeling. Holmes alone 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


25 


could rise superior to petty influences. He held 
his open note-book upon his knee, and from time to 
time he jotted down figures and memoranda in the 
light of his pocket-lantern. 

At the Lyceum Theater the crowds were already 
thick at the side-entrances. In front a continuous 
stream of hansoms and four-wheelers were rattling 
up, discharging their cargoes of shirt-fronted men 
and beshawled, bediamonded women. We had 
hardly reached the third pillar, \vhich was our ren- 
dezvous, before a small, dark, brisk man, in the dress 
of a coachman, accosted us. 

“ Are you the parties who come with Miss Mor- 
stan ? ” he asked. 

“ I am Miss Morstan, and these two gentlemen 
are my friends,” said she. 

He bent a pair of wonderfully penetrating and 
questioning eyes upon us. “ You will excuse me, 
miss,” he said, with a certain dogged manner, “ but 
I was to ask you to give me your word that neither 
of your companions is a police officer.” 

“ I give you my word on that,” she answered. 

He gave a shrill whistle, ‘on which a street Arab 
led across a four-wheeler, and opened the door. 
The man who had addressed us mounted to the box, 
while we took our places inside. We had hardly 
done so before the driver whipped up his horse, and 
we plunged away at a furious pace through the 
foggy streets. 

The situation was a curious one. We were driv- 
ing to an unknown place, on an unknown errand. 
Yet our invitation was either a complete hoax. 


26 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


which was an inconceivable hypothesis, or else we 
had good reason to think that important issues 
might hang upon our journey. Miss Morstan’s de» 
meaner was as resolute and collected as ever. I 
endeavored to cheer and amuse her by reminiscences 
of my adventures in Afghanistan ; but, to tell the 
truth, I was myself so excited at our situation and 
so curious as to our destination that my stories were 
slightly involved. To this day she declares that I 
told her one moving anecdote as to how a musket 
looked into my tent at the dead of night, and how 
I fired a double-barreled tiger cub at it. At first I 
had some idea as to the direction in which we were 
driving ; but soon, what with our pace, the fog, and 
my own limited knowledge of London, I lost my 
bearings, and knew nothing, save that we seemed 
to be going a very long way. Sherlock Holmes 
was never at fault, however, and he muttered the 
names as the cab rattled through squares and in 
and out by tortuous by-streets. 

“Kochester Kow,” said he. “How Vincent 
Square. How we come out on the Yauxhall Bridge 
Road. Wq are making* for the Surrey side appar- 
ently. Yes, I thought so. How we are on the 
bridge. You can catch glimpses of the river.” 

We did indeed get a fleeting view of a stretch of 
of the Thames, with the lamps shining upon the 
broad, silent water ; but our cab dashed on, and was 
soon involved in a labyrinth of streets upon the 
other side. 

“ Wordsworth Road,” said my companion. 
“ Priory Road. Lark Hall Lane. Stockwell Place. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


27 

fiobert Street. Cold Harbor Lane. Our quest does 
not appear to take us to very fashionable regions.” 

W e had, indeed, reached a questionable and forbid- 
ding neighborhood. Long lines of dull brick houses 
Avere only relieved by the coarse glare and tawdry 
brilliancy of public-houses at the corner. Then 
came rows of two-storied villas, each Avith a front- 
ing of miniature garden, and then again interminable 
lines of new staring brick buildings — the monster 
tentacles which the giant city was throwing out into 
the country. At last the cab drew up at the third 
house in a new terrace. Hone of the other houses 
was inhabited, and that at which Ave stopped Avas 
as dark as its neighbors, save for a single glimmer 
in the kitchen Avindow. On our knocking, however, 
the door Avas instantly thrown open by a Hindoo 
servant clad in a yellow turban, Avhite, loose-fitting 
clothes, and a yellow sash. There Avas something 
strangely incongruous in this oriental figure framed 
in the commonplace doorway of a third-rate sub- 
urban dwelling-house. 

“ The sahib awaits you,” said he, and even as he 
spoke there came a high piping voice from some 
inner room. “ Show them in to me, khitmutgar,” 
it cried. “ Show them straight in to me.” 


28 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR 


CHAPTER IT. 

THE STORY OF THE BALD-HEADED MAN. 

We followed the Indian down the sordid and coni* 
mon passage, ill lighted and worse furnished, until 
he came to a door upon the right, which he threw 
open. A blaze of yellow light streamed out upon us, 
and in the center of the glare there stood a small man 
with a very high head, a bristle of red hair allround 
the fringe of it, and a bald, shining scalp, which 
shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from 
fir-trees. He rubbed his hands together as he stood, 
and his features were in a perpetual jerk, now 
smiling, now scowling, but never for an instant in 
repose. Nature had given him a pendulous lip, and 
a too visible line of yellow and irregular teeth, which 
he strove feebly to conceal by constantly passing his 
hand over the lower part of his face. In spite of 
his obtrusive baldness, he gave the impression of 
youth. In point of fact, he had just turned his 
thirtieth year. 

“ Your servant. Miss Morstan,” he kept repeating 
in a thin, high voice. “ Your servant, gentlemen. 
Pray step into my little sanctum. A small place, 
miss, but furnished to my own liking. An oasis of 
art in the howling desert of South London.’’ 


/ ' THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 29 

We were all astonished by the appearance of the 
apartment into which he invited us. In that sorry 
house it looked as out of place as a diamond of the 
first water in a setting of brass. The richest and 
glossiest of curtains and draperies draped the walls, 
looped back, here and thereto expose some richly 
mounted painting or oriental vase. The carpet was 
of amber and black, so soft and so thick that the 
foot sunk pleasantly into it, as into a bed of moss. 
Two great tiger-skins thrown athwart it increased 
the suggestion of Eastern luxury, as did a huge 
hookah which stood upon a mat in the corner. A 
lamp in the fashion of a silver dove Avas hung from 
an almost invisible golden wire in the center of the 
room. As it burned it filled the air with a subtle 
and aromatic odor. 

“ Mr. Thaddeus Sholto,” said the little man, still 
jerking and smiling. “ That is my name. You are 
Miss Morstan, of course. And these gentlemen — ” 

“ This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and this Doctor 
Watson.” 

“ A doctor, eh ? ” cried he, much excited. “ Have 
you your stethoscope? Might I ask you — would 
you have the kindness ? I have grave doubts as to 
my mitral valve, if you would be so very good. 
The aortic I may rely upon, but I should value 
your opinion upon the mitral.” 

1 listened to his heart as requested, but was un. 
able to find anything amiss, save indeed that he was 
in an ecstasy of fear, for he shivered from head to 
foot. “ It appears to be normal,” I said. “ You 
nave no cause for uneasiness,” 


30 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


You will excuse my anxiety, Miss Morstan,” he 
remarked, airily. “I am a great sufferer, and 1 
have long had suspicions as to that valve. I am de- 
lighted to hear that they are unwarranted. Had 
your father, Miss Morstan, refrained from throwing 
a strain upon his heart, he might have been alive 
now.” 

I could have struck the man across the face, so 
hot was I at this callous and off-hand reference to 
so delicate a matter. Miss Morstan sat down, and 
her face grew white to the lips. ‘‘ I knew in my 
heart that he was dead,” said she. 

“ I can give you every information,” said he, 
and what is more, I can do you justice ; and I 
will, too, whatever brother Bartholomew may say. 
I am so glad to have your friends here, not only as 
an escort to you, but also as witnesses to what I am 
about to do and say. The three of us can show a bold 
front to brother Bartholomew. But let us have no 
outsiders — no police or officials. We can settle 
everything satisfactory among ourselves, without 
any interference. Nothing would annoy brother 
Bartholomew more than any publicity.” He sat 
down upon a low settee and blinked at us inquir- 
ingly with his weak, watery blue eyes. 

“ For my part,” said Holmes, “ whatever you 
may choose to say will go no further.” 

I nodded to show my agreement. 

“ That is well ! That is well ! ” said be. May I 
offer you a glass of Chianti, Miss Morstan ? or of 
Tokay ? I keep no other wines. Shall I open a 
flask? No? Well, then, I trust that you have no 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


31 


abjection to tobacco-smoke, to the mild, balsamic 
odor of the Eastern tobacco. I am a little nervous, 
and I find my hookah an invaluable sedative.” He 
ipplied a taper to the great bowl, and the smoke 
bubbled merrily through the rose-water. We sat all 
three in a semicircle, with our heads advanced, and 
our chins upon our hands, while the strange, jerky 
little fellow, with his high, shining head, puffed un- 
easily in the center. 

“ When I first determined to make this communi- 
cation to you,” said he, “ I might have given you 
my address, but I feared that you might disregard 
my request and bring unpleasant people with you. 
I took the liberty, therefore*, of making an appoint- 
ment in such a way that my man Williams might 
be able to see you first. I have complete confi- 
dence in his discretion, and he had orders, if he were 
dissatisfied, to proceed no further in the matter. Y ou 
will excuse these precautions, but I am a man of 
somewhat retiring, and, I might even say, refined 
tastes, and there is nothing more un aesthetic than a 
policeman. I have a natural shrinking from all forms 
of rough materialism. I seldom come in contact 
with the rough crowd. I live, as you see, with some 
little atmosphere of elegance around me. I may 
call myself a patron of the arts. It is my weakness. 
The landscape is a genuine Corot, and, though a 
connoisseur might perhaps throw a doubt upon that 
Salvator Kosa, there cannot be the least question 
about the Bouguereau. I am partial to the modern 
French school.” 

‘‘ You will excuse me, Mr. Sholto,” said Miss Mor- 


32 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Stan, “ but I am here at your request to learn some, 
thing which you desire to tell me. It is very late, 
and I should desire the interview to be as short as 
possible.” 

“ At the best it must take some time,” he an- 
swered ; “ for we shall certainly have to go to Nor- 
wood and see brother Bartholomew. We shall all 
go and try if we can get the better of brother Bar- 
tholomew. He is very angry with me for taking the 
course which has seemed right to me. I had quite 
high words with him last night. You cannot imagine 
what a terrible fellow he is when he is angry.” 

“ If we are to go to Norwood it would perhaps be 
as well to start at once,” I ventured to remark. 

He laughed until his ears were quite red. “ That 
would hardly do,” he cried I don’t know what he 
would say if I brought you in that sudden wa3^ 
No ; I must prepare you by showing you how we 
all stand to each other. In the first place, I must tell 
you that there are several points in the story of 
which I am myself ignorant. I can only lay the 
facts before you as far as I know them myself. 

“ My father was, as you may have guessed. Major 
John Sholto, once of the Indian army. He retired 
some eleven years ago, and came to live at Pon- 
dicherry Lodge in Upper Norwood. He had pros- 
pered in India, and brought back with him a con- 
siderable sum of money, a h.rge collection of valuable 
curiosities, and a staff of native servants. With 
these advantages he bought himself a house, and 
lived in great luxury. My t \7in- brother Bartholomew 
and I were the only childrijn. 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


33 


I very well remember the sensation which was 
caused by the disappearance of Captain Morstan. 
We read the details in the papers, and, knowing that 
he had been a friend of our father’s, we discussed 
the case freely in his presence. He used to join in 
our speculations as to what could have happened. 
Never for an instant did we suspect that he had the 
whole secret hidden in h's own breast — that of all 
men he alone knew the fate of Arthur Morstan. 

“We did know, however, that some mystery — 
some positive danger — overhung our father. He 
was very fearful of going out alone, and he always 
employed two prize-fighters to act as porters at 
Pondicherry Lodge. Williams, w^ho drove you to- 
night, was one of them. He was once a light-weight 
champion of England. Our father would never tell 
us what it was he feared, but he had a most marked 
aversion to men with wooden legs. On one occa- 
sion he actually fired his revolver at a wooden- 
legged man, who proved to be a harmless tradesman 
canvassing for orders. We had to pay a large sum 
to hush the matter up. My brother and I used to 
think this a mere whim of my father’s, but events 
liave since led us to change our opinion. 

“Eaily in 1882 my father received a letter from 
India which was a great shock to him. He nearly 
fainted at the breakfast- table w^hen he opened it, 
and from that day he sickened to his death. What 
was in the letter we could never discover, but I could 
see as he held it that it was short and written in a 
scrawling hand. He had suffered for years from an 
enlarged spleen, but he now became rapidly worse, 


34 


THE SIGN OF THE FOU 


and toward the end of April we were informed that 
he was beyond all hope, and that he wished to make 
a last communication to us. 

“ When we entered his room he was propped up 
with pillows and breathing heavily. He besought 
us to lock the door and to come upon either side of 
the bed. Then, grasping our hands, he made a re - 
markable statement to us, in a voice which was 
broken as much by emotion as by pain. I shall try 
and give it to you in his own very words. 

“ ‘ I have only one thing,’ he said, ‘ which weighs 
upon my mind at this supreme moment. It is my 
treatment of poor Morstan’s orphan. The cursed 
greed which has been my besetting sin through life 
has withheld from her the treasure, half at least of 
which should have been hers. And yet I have made 
no use of it myself — so blind and foolish a thing is 
avarice. The mere feeling of possession has been so 
dear to me that 1 could not bear to share it with 
another. See that chaplet tipped with pearls beside 
the quinine-bottle. Even that I could not bear to 
part with, although I had got it out with the design 
of sending it to her. You, my sons, will give her 
a fair share of the Agra treasure. But send her 
nothing — rot even the chaplet — until 1 am gone. 
After all, men have been as bad as this and have 
recovered. 

“ ‘ I will tell you how Morstan died,’ he continued 
‘ He had suffered for years from a weak heart, but 
he concealed it from every one. I alone knew it. 
When in India, he and I, through a remarkable 
chain of circumstances, came into possession of n 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


35 


considerable treasure. I brought it over to Eng- 
land, and on the night of Morstan’s arrival he came 
straight over here to claim his share. He walkeii 
over from the station, and was admitted by my 
faithful old Lai Cho wdar, who is no w dead. Morstan 
and I had a difference of opinion as to the division 
of the treasure, and we came to heated words. 
Morstan had sprung out of his chair in a paroxysm 
of anger, when he suddenly pressed his hand to his 
side, his face turned a dusky hue, and he fell back- 
ward, cutting his head against the corner of the 
treasure-chest. When I stooped over him I found, 
to my horror, that he was dead. 

“ ‘ For a long time I sat half distracted, wonder 
ing what I should do. My first impulse was, of 
course, to call for assistance ; but I could not but 
recognize that there was every chance that I would 
be accused of his murder. His death at the moment 
of a quarrel, and the gash in his head, would be 
black against me. Again, an official inquiry could 
not be made without bringing out some facts about 
the treasure, which I was particularly anxious to 
keep secret. He had told me that no soul upon earth 
knew where he had gone. There seemed to be no 
necessity why any soul ever should know. 

“ ‘ I was still pondering over the matter, when, 
looking up, I saw my servant, Lai Chowdar, in the 
doorway. He stole in, and bolted the door behind 
him. ‘‘ Do not fear, sahib,” he said. “ Ho one 
need know that you have killed him. Let us hide 
him away, and who is the wiser ? ” ‘‘I did not kill 

him,” said I. Lai Chowdar shook his head, and 


36 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


smiled, “ I heard it all, sahib,” said he. “ I heard 
you quarrel, and I heard the blow. But my lips are 
sealed. All are asleep in the house. Let us put him 
away together.” That was enough to decide me. 
If my own servant could not believe my innocence, 
how could I hope to make it good before twelve 
foolish tradesmen in a jury-box ? Lai Chowdar and 
I disposed of the body that night, and within a few 
days the London papers were full of the mysterious 
disappearance of Captain Morstan. You will see 
from what I say that I can hardly be blamed in the 
matter. My fault lies in the fact that we concealed, 
not only the body, but also the treasure, and that I 
have clung to Morstan’s share as well as to my own. 
I wish you, therefore, to make restitution. Put your 
ears down to my mouth. The treasure is hidden 
in — ’ at this instant a horrible change came over his 
expression ; his eyes stared wildly, his jaw dropped, 
and he yelled, in a voice which I can never forget, 
‘ Keep him out I For Christ’s sake, keep him out ! ’ 
We both stared round at the window behind us 
upon which his gaze was fixed. A face was looking 
in at us out of the darkness. We could see the 
whitening of the nose where it was pressed against 
the glass. It was a bearded, hairy face, with wild, 
cruel eyes and an expression of concentrated ma- 
levolence. My brother and I rushed toward the 
window, but the man was gone. When we returned 
to my father, his head had dropped and his pulse 
had ceased to beat. 

“We searched the garden that night, but found 
no sign of the intruder, save that just under the 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


37 


window a single footmark was visible in the flower- 
bed. But for that one trace, we might have thought 
that our imaginations had conjured up that wild, 
fierce face. We soon, however, had another and a 
more striking proof that there were secret agencies 
at work all around us. The window of my father’s 
room was found open in the morning, his cupboards 
and boxes had been rifled, and upon his chest was 
fixed a torn piece of paper with the words, ‘ The 
sign of the four’ scrawled across it. What the 
phrase meant, or who our secret visitor may have 
been, we never knew. As far as we can judge, none 
of my father’s property had been actually stolen, 
though everything had been turned out. My 
brother and I naturally associated this peculiar in- 
cident with the fear which haunted my father dur- 
ing his life ; but it is still a complete mystery to 
us.” 

The little man stopped to relight his hookah, and 
puffed thoughtfully for a few moments. We had 
all sat absorbed, listening to his extraordinary nar- 
rative. At the short account of her father’s death 
Miss Morstan had turned deathly white, and for a 
moment I feared that she was about to faint. She* 
rallied, however, on drinking a glass of water which 
I quietly poured out for her from a Yenetian carafe 
upon the side table. Sherlock Holmes leaned back 
in his chair with an abstracted expression and the 
lids drawn over his glittering eyes. As I glanced 
at him I could not but think how on that very day 
he had complained bitterly of the commonplaceness 
of life. Here, at least, was a problem which would 


38 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


tax his sagacity to the utmost. Mr. Thaddeus Sholto 
looked from one to the other of us with an obvious 
pride at the effect which his story had produced, 
and then continued between the puffs of his over- 
grown pipe : 

“ My brother and I,” said he, “ were, as you may 
imagine, much excited as to the treasure which my 
father had spoken of. For weeks and for months we 
dug and delved in every part of the garden, without 
discovering its whereabouts. It was maddening to 
think that the hiding-place was on his very lips at 
the moment that he died. We could judge the 
splendor of the missing riches by the chaplet which 
he had taken out. Over this chaplet my brother 
Bartholomew and I had some little discussion. The 
pearls w-ere evidently of great value, and he was 
averse to part with them, for, between friends, my 
brother was himself a little inclined to my father’s 
fault. He thought, too, that if we parted with the 
chaplet it might give rise to gossip, and finally bring 
us into trouble. It was all that I could do to per- 
suade him to let me find out Miss Morstan’s address 
and send her a detached pearl at fixed intervals, so 
that, at least, she might never feel destitute.” 

“ It was a kindly thought,” said our companion, 
earnestly. ‘‘ It was extremely good of you.” 

The little man waved his hand deprecatingly. 
“We were your trustees,” he said. ‘‘ That was the 
view which I took of it, though brother Bartholo- 
mew could not altogether see it in that light. We 
had plenty of money ourselves. I desired no more. 
Besides, it would have been such bad taste to have 


THE SIGN OF THE POUR. 


39 

treated a young lady in so scurvy a fashion. ‘ Le 
mauvais gout mene au Grimed The French have a 
rery neat way of putting these things. Our dif- 
ference of opinion on this subject went so far that 
I thought it best to set up rooms for myself ; so I 
left Pondicherry Lodge, taking the old khit-mutgar 
and Williams with me. Yesterday, however, I 
learned that an event of extreme importance had 
occurred. The treasure has been discovered. I 
instantly communicated with Miss Morstan, and it 
only remains for us to drive out to ^Torwood and 
demand our share. I explained my views last night 
to brother Bartholomew ; so we shall be expected, 
if not welcome visitors.” 

Mr. Thaddeus Sholto ceased, and sat twitching on 
his luxurious settee. We all remained silent, with 
our thoughts upon the new development which the 
mysterious business had taken. Holmes was the 
first to spring to his feet. 

“ You have done well, sir, from first to last,” said 
he. “ It is possible that we may be able to make 
you some small return by throwing some light upon 
that which is still dark to you. But, as Miss 
Morstan remarked just now, it is late, and we had 
best put the matter through without delay.” 

Our new acquaintance very deliberately coiled up 
the tube of his hookah, and produced from behind a 
curtain a very long befrogged top-coat with astrakhan 
collar and cuffs. This he buttoned tightly up, in spite 
of the extreme closeness of the night, and finished 
his attire by putting on a rabbit-skin cap with hang- 
ing lappets which covered the ears, so that no part 


40 


THE SIGN OP THE POUR. 


of him was visible save his mobile and peaky face. 
“ My health is somewhat fragile,” he remarked, as 
he led the way down the passage. “I am com- 
pelled to be a valetudinarian.” 

Our cab was awaiting us outside, and our pro- 
gram was evidently prearranged, for the driver 
started off at once at a rapid pace. Thaddeus 
Sholto talked incessant!}^, in a voice which rose high 
above the rattle of the wheels.” 

“ Bartholomew is a clever fellow,” said he. 
“ How do you think he found out where the treasure 
was ? He had come to the conclusion that it was 
somewhere in-doors ; so he worked out all the cubic 
space of the house, and made measurements every- 
where, so that not one inch should be unaccounted 
for. Among other things, he found that the height 
of the building was seventy-four feet, but on add- 
ing together the heights of all the separate rooms, 
and making every allowance for the space between, 
which he ascertained by borings, he could not bring 
the total to more than seventy feet. There were 
four feet unaccounted for. These could only be at 
the top of the building. He knocked a hole, there- 
fore, in the lath and plaster ceiling of the highest 
room, and there, sure enough, he came upon another 
little garret above it, which had been sealed up and 
was known to no one. In the center stood the 
treasure-chest, resting upon two rafters. He low- 
ered it through the hole, and there it lies. He com- 
putes the value of the jewels at not less than half 
a million sterling.” 

At the mention of this gigantic sum we all stared 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


41 


at one another open-eyed. Miss Morstan, could we 
secure her rights, would change from a needy gov- 
erness to the richest heiress in England. Surely it 
was the place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such 
news ; yet I am ashamed to say that selfishness took 
me by the soul, and that my heart turned as heavy 
as lead within me. I stammered out some few halt- 
ing words of congratulation, and then sat downcast, 
with my head drooped, deaf to the babble of our 
new acquaintance. He was clearly a confirmed 
hypochondriac, and I was dreamily conscious that 
he W'as pouring forth interminable trains of symp- 
toms, and imploring information as to the composi- 
tion and action of innumerable quack nostrums, 
some of which he bore about in a leather case in his 
pocket. I trust that he may not remember any of 
the answers which I gave him that night. Holmes 
declares that he overheard me caution him against 
the great danger of taking more than two drops of 
castor oil, while I recommended strychnine \n 
larger doses as a sedative. However that may be, 
I was certainly relieved when our cab pulled up 
with a jerk and the coachman sprung down to open 
the door. 

“ This, Miss Morstan, is Pondicherry Lodge,” said 
Mr. Thaddeus Sholto, as he handed her out. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 




CHAPTER Y. 

THE TRAGEDY OF PONDICHERRY LODGE. 

It was nearly eleven o’clock when we reached 
this final stage of our night’s adventures. We had 
left the damp fog of the great city behind us, and 
the night was fairly fine. A Avarm wind blew from 
the westward, and heavy clouds moved slowly across 
the sky, Avith half a moon peeping occasionally 
through the rifts. It Avas clear enough to see for 
some distance, but Thaddeus Sholto took down one 
of the side-lamps from the carriage to give us a 
better light upon our Avay. 

Pondicherry Lodge stood in its own grounds, and 
Avas girt round with a very high stone Avail topped 
wfih broken glass. A single narrow, iron-clamped 
door formed the only means of entrance. On this 
our guide knocked with a peculiar postman-like rat- 
tat. 

“ Who is there ? ” cried a gruff voice from within. 

“ It is I, McMurdo. You surely know my knock 
by this time.” 

There Avas a grumbling sound, and a clanking and 
jarring of keys. The door sAvung heavily back, and 
a short, deep-chested man stood in the opening, 
with the yellow light of the lantern shining upon 
his protruded face and tAvinkling, distrustful eyes. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


43 


‘‘That you, Mr. Thaddeus? But who are the 
others ? I had no orders about them from the 
master.” 

“ No, McMurdo ? You surprise me ! I told my 
brother last night that I should bring some friends.” 

“ He hain’t been out o’ his room to-day, Mr. 
Thaddeus, and I have no orders. You know very 
well that I must stick to regulations. I can let you 
in ; but your friends they must just stop where they 
are.” 

This was an unexpected obstacle ! Thaddeus 
Sholto looked about him in a perplexed and helpless 
manner. “ This is too bad of you, McMurdo ! ” 
he said. “ If I guarantee them, that is enough for 
you. There is a young lady, too. She cannot wait 
on the public road at this hour.” 

“ Yery sorry, Mr. Thaddeus,” said the porter, 
ine^^orably. “ Folk may be friends o’ yours, and 
yet no friends o’ the master’s. He pays me well to 
do my duty, and my duty I’ll do. I don’t know 
none o’ your friends.” 

“Oh, yes, you do, McMurdo,” cried Sherlock 
Holmes, genially. “I don’t think you can have 
forgotten me. Don’t you remember the amateur 
who fought three rounds with you at Alison’s rooms 
on the night of your benefit four years back ? ” 

“ Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes ? ” roared the prize- 
fio-hter. “ God’s truth ! how could I have mistook 

o 

you ? If, instead o’ standin’ there so quiet, you had 
just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours 
under the jaw, I’d ha’ known you without a ques* 
tion. Ah, you’re one that has wasted your gifts. 


44 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


you have ! You might have aimed high, if you had 
joined the fancy.” 

“You see, Watson, if all else fails me I have still 
one of the scientific professions open to me,” said 
Holmes, laughing. “ Our friend won’t keep us out 
in the cold now, I am sure.” 

“ In you come, sir ; in you come — you and your 
friends,” he answered. “Yery sorry, Mr. Thad 
deus, but orders are very strict. Had to be certain 
of your friends before I let them in.” 

Inside a gravel path wound through desolate 
grounds to a huge clump of a house, square and 
prosaic, all plunged in shadow save where a moon- 
beam struck one corner and glimmered in a garret 
window. The vast size of the building, with its gloom 
and its deathly silence, struck a chill to the heart. 
Even Thaddeus Sholto seemed ill at ease, and the 
lantern quivered and rattled in his hand. 

“ I cannot understand it,” he said. “ There must 
be some mistake. I distinctly told Bartholomew 
that we should be here, and yet there is no light in 
his window. I do not know what to make of it.” 

“ Does he always guard the premises in this way ? ” 
asked Holmes. 

“Yes; he has followed my father’s custom. Ho 
was the favorite son, you know, and I sometimes 
think that my father may have told him more than 
he ever told me. That is Bartholomew’s window 
up there where the moonshine strikes. It is quite 
bright, but there is no light from within, I think.” 

“ Hone,” said Holmes. “ But I see the glint of a 
light in that little window beside the door.” 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


45 


“ Ah, that is the housekeeper’s room. That is 
where old Mrs. Bernstone sits. She can tell us all 
about it. But perhaps you would not mind waiting 
here for a minute or two, for if we all go in together, 
and she has had no word of our coming, she may be 
alarmed. But hush ! what is that ? ” 

He held up the lantern, and his hand shook until 
the circles of light flickered and wavered all round 
us. Miss Morstan seized ray wrist, and we all stood 
with thumping hearts, straining our ears. From 
the great black house there sounded through the 
silent night the saddest and most pitiful of sounds 
— the shrill, broken whimpering of a frightened 
woman. 

“ It is Mrs. Bernstone,” said Sholto. “ She is the 
only woman in the house. Wait here. I shall be 
back in a moment.” He hurried for the door, and 
knocked in his peculiar way. We could see a tall 
old woman admit him and sway with pleasure at the 
very sight of him. 

“ Oh, Mr. Thaddeus, sir, I am so glad you have 
come ! I am so glad you have come, Mr. Thaddeus, 
sir ! ” We heard her reiterated rejoicings until the 
door was closed and her voice died away into a 
muffled monotone. 

Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung 
it slowly round, and peered keenly at the house 
and at the great rubbish-heaps which cumbered the 
grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood together, and 
lier hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is 
love, for here were we two who had never seen each 
other before that day, between whom no word or 


^6 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now 
in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought 
for each other. I have marveled at it since, but at 
the time it seemed the most natural thing that I 
should go out to her so, and, as she has often told 
me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me 
for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in 
hand, like two children, and there was peace in our 
hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us. 

“ What a strange place ! ” she said, looking 
round. 

“ It looks as though all the moles in England had 
been let loose in it. I have seen something of the 
sort on the side of a hill near Ballarat, where the 
prospectors had been at work.” 

“ And from the same cause,” said Holmes. “ These 
are the traces of the treasure-seekers. You must 
remember that they were six years looking for it, 
Ho wonder that the grounds look like a gravel-pit.” 

At that moment the door of the house burst open, 
and Thaddeus Sholto came running out, with his 
hands thrown forward and terror in his eyes. 

There is something amiss with Bartholomew ! ” 
he cried. “ I am frightened ! My nerves cannot 
stand it.” He was, indeed, half blubbering with 
fear, and his twitching, feeble face, peeping out from 
the great astrakhan collar, had the helpless, appeal- 
ing expression of a terrified child. 

“ Come into the house,” said Holmes, in his crisp, 
firm way. 

“ Yes, do ! ” pleaded Thaddeus Sholto. “ I really 
do not feel equal to giving directions,” 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


47 


We all followed him into the housekeeper’s room, 
which stood upon the left-hand side of the passage, 
The old woman was pacing up and down with a 
scared look and restless, picking fingers, but the 
sight of Miss Morstan appeared to have a soothing 
effect upon her 

“ God bless your sweet calm face I ” she cried, with 
a hysterical sob. “ It does me good to see you. Oh, 
but I have been sorely tried this day ! ” 

Our companion patted her thin, work-worn hand, 
and murmured some few words of kindly, womanly 
comfort which brought the color back into the 
other’s bloodless cheeks. 

“ Master has locked himself in and will not answer 
me,” she explained. “ All day I have waited to hear 
from him, for he often likes to be alone ; but an hour 
ago I feared that something was amiss, so I went up 
and peeped through the keyhole. You must go up, 
Mr. Thaddeus — you must go up and look for your- 
self. I have seen Mr. Bartholomew Sholto in joy and 
in sorrow for ten long years, but I never saw him with 
such a face on him as that.” 

Sherlock Holmes took the 'lamp and led the way, 
for Thaddeus Sholto’s teeth were chattering in his 
head. So shaken was he that I had to pass my 
hand under his arm as we went up the stairs, for 
bis knees were trembling under him. Twice as we 
ascended Holmes whipped his lens out of his pocket 
and carefully examined marks which appeared to 
me to be mere shapeless smudges of dust upon the 
cocoa-nut matting which served as a stair-carpet. 
He walked slowly from step to step, holding the 


48 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR- 


lamp low, and shooting keen glances to right and 
left. Miss Morstan had remained behind with the 
frightened housekeeper. 

The third flight of stairs ended in a straight pas- 
sage of some length, with a great picture in Indian 
tapestry upon the right of it and three doors upon 
the left. Holmes advanced along it in the same 
slow and methodical way, while we kept close at 
his heels, with our long black shadows streaming 
backward down the corridor. The third door was 
that which we were seeking. Holmes knocked 
without receiving any answer, and then tried to 
turn the handle and force.it open. It was locked 
on the inside, however, and by a broad and power- 
ful bolt, as we could see when we set our lamp up 
against it. The key being turned, however, the 
hole was not entirely closed. Sherlock Holmes 
bent down to it, and instantly rose again with a 
sharp intaking of the breath. 

“ There is something devilish in this, Watson,” 
said he, more moved than I had ever before seen 
him. “ What do you make of it ? ” 

I stooped to the hole, and recoiled in horror. 
Moonlight was streaming into the room, and it was 
bright with a vague and shifty radiance. Looking 
straight at* me, and suspended, as it were, in the air,, 
for all beneath was in shadow, there hung a face — 
the very face of our companion Thaddeus. There 
was the same high, shining head, the same circular 
bristle of red hair, the same bloodless countenance. 
The features were set, however, in a horrible smile, 
a fixed and unnatural grin, which, in that still and 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


40 


moonlit room, was more jarring to the nerves than 
any scowl or contortion. So like was the face to 
that of our little friend that I looked round at him 
to make sure that he was indeed with us. Then I 
recalled to mind that he had mentioned to us that 
his brother and he were twins. 

“ This is terrible ! ” I said to Holmes. What is 
to be done ? ” 

“ The door must come down,” he answered, and, 
springing agaiust it, he put all his weight upon the 
lock. It creaked and groaned, but did not yield. 
Together we flung ourselves upon it once more, and 
this time it gave way with a sudden snap, and we 
found ourselves within Bartholomew Sholto’s 
chamber. 

It appeared to have been fitted up as a chemical 
laboratory. A double line of glass-stoppered bot- 
tles was drawn up upon the wall opposite the door, 
and the table was littered over with Bunsen burners, 
test-tubes, and retorts. In the corners stood car- 
boys of acid in wicker baskets. One of these ap- 
peared to leak or to have been broken, for a stream 
of dark-colored liquid had trickled out from it, and 
the air was heavy with a peculiarly pungent, tar- 
like odor. A set of steps stood at one .side of the 
room, in the midst of a litter of lath and plaster, and 
above them there was an opening in the ceiling 
large enough for a man to pass through. At the 
foot of the steps a long coil of rope was thrown 
carelessly together. 

By the table, in a wooden armchair, the master 
of the house was seated all in a heap, with his head 


50 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


sunk upon his left shoulder, and that ghastly, in« 
scrutable smile upon his face. He was stiff and 
cold, and had clearly been dead many hours. It 
seemed to me that not only his features but all his 
limbs were twisted and turned in the most fantastic 
fashion. By his hand upon the table there lay a 
peculiar instrument — a brown, close-grained stick, 
with a stone head like a hammer, rudely lashed on 
with coarse twine. Beside it was a torn sheet of 
note-paper with some words scrawled upon it. 
Holmes glanced at it, and then handed it to me. 

“ You see,” he said, with a significant raising of 
the eyebrows. 

In the light of the lantern I read, with a thi-ill of 
horror, “ The sign of the four.” 

“ In God’s name, what does it all mean ? ” I asked. 

“It means murder,” said he, stooping over the 
dead man. “ Ah, I expected it. Look here ! ” He 
pointed to what looked like a long, dark thorn stuck 
in the skin just above the ear. 

“ It looks like a thorn,” said I. 

“ It is a thorn. You may pick it out. But be 
careful, for it is poisoned.” 

I took it up between my finger and thumb. It 
came away from the skin so readily that hardly any 
mark was left behind. One tiny speck of blood 
showed where the puncture had been. 

“ This is all an insoluble mystery to me,” said I. 
‘‘It grows darker instead of clearer.” 

“ On the contrary,” he answered, “ it clears every 
instant. I only require a few missing links to have 
an entirely connected case.” 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


51 


We had almost forgotten our companion’s pres- 
ence since we entered the chamber. He was still 
standing in the doorway, the very picture of terror, 
wringing his hands and moaning to himself. Sud- 
denly, however, he broke out into a sharp, queru- 
lous cry. 

“ The treasure is gone I ” he said. “ They have 
robbed him of the treasure 1 There is the hole 
through which we lowered it. I helped him to do 
it 1 1 was the last person who saw him ! I left 
him here last night, and I heard him lock the door 
as I came down-stairs.” 

“ What time was that ? ” 

“ It was ten o’clock. And now he is dead, and 
the police will be called in, and I shall be suspected of 
having had a hand in it. Oh, yes, I am sure I shall. 
But you don’t think so, gentlemen? Surely you 
don’t think that it was I? Is it likety that I would 
have brought you here if it were I ? Oh, dear 1 oh, 
dear I I know that I shall go mad ! ” He Jerked 
his arms and stamped his feet in a kind of convulsive 
frenzy. 

“ You have no reason to fear, Mr. Sholto,” said 
Holmes, kindly, putting his hand upon his shoulder. 
“ Take my advice, and drive down to the station 
and report the matter to the police. Offer to 
assist them in every way. We shall wait here until 
your return.” 

The little man obeyed in a half-stupefied fashion, 
and we heard him stumbling down the stairs in the 
dark. 


62 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


CRATTIR yi. 

SHERLOCK HOLMES GI^ SS A DEMONSTRATION. 

“ Now, Watson,” said liolmes, rubbing his bands, 

we have half an hour to ourselves. Let us make 
good use of it. My case is, as 1 have told you, al- 
most complete ; but we must not err on the side of 
over-confidence. Simple as the case seems now, 
there may be something deeper underlying it.” 

“ Simple ! ” I ejaculated. 

“ Surely,” said he, with something of the air of a 
clinical professor expounding to his class. “Just 
sit in the corner there, that your foot-prints may not 
complicate matters. Nov^ to work ! In the first ■ 
place, how did these folks come, and how did they 
go ? The door has not bet-n opened since last night. 
How of the window ? ” B'e carried the lamp across 
to it, muttering his observations aloud the while, 
but addressing them to himself rather than to me. 
“Window is snibbed on the inner side. Frame- 
work is solid. No hinges at the side. Let us open 
it. No water-pipe near it. Roof quite out of reach. 
Yet a man has mounted by the window. It rained 
a little last night. Here is the print of a foot in 
mold upon the sill. And here is a circular muddy 
mark, and here again upon the fioor, and here again 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 53 

by the table. See here, Watson ! This is really a 
very pretty demonstration.” 

I looked at the round, well-defined, muddy disks. 
“This is not a foot-mark,” said I. 

“ It is something much more valuable to us. It is 
the impression of a wooden stump. You see here 
on the sill is the boot-mark, a heavy boot with a 
broad metal heel, and beside it is the mark of the 
timber-toe.” 

“ It is the wooden-legged man.” 

“ Quite so. But there has been some one else — a 
very able and efficient ally. Could you scale that 
wall, doctor ? ” 

I looked out of the open window. The moon 
still shone brightly on that angle of the house. We 
were a good sixty feet from the ground, and, look 
where I would, I could see no foothold, nor as much 
as a crevice in the brick- work. 

“ It is absolutely impossible,” I answered. 

“ Without aid it is so. But suppose you had a 
friend up here who lowered you this good stout rope 
which I see in the corner, securing one end of it to 
this great hook in the wall. Then, I think, if you 
were an active man you might climb up, wooden leg 
and all. You would depart, of course, in the same 
fashion, and your ally would draw up the rope, un- 
tie it from the hook, shut the window, snib it on the 
inside, and get away in the way that he originally 
came. As a minor point it may be poted,” he con- 
tinued, fingering the rope, “ that our wooden-legged 
friend, though a fair climber, was not a professional 
sailor. His hands were far from horny. My lens 


64 


THE SIGN OP THE POUR. 


discloses more than one blood-mark, especially t(X 
ward the end of the rope, from which I gather that 
he slipped down with such velocity that he took the 
skin off his hands.” 

“ This is all very well,” said I, “ but the thing be- 
comes more unintelligible than ever. How about 
this mysterious ally ? How came he into the room ? ” 

“ Yes, the ally ! ” repeated Holmes, pensively. 
“ There are features of interest about this ally. He 
lifts the case from the regions of the commonplace. 
I fancy that this ally breaks fresh ground in the an- 
nals of crime in this country — though parallel cases 
suggest themselves from India, and, if my memory 
serves me, from Senegambia.” 

“ How came he, then ? ” I reiterated. “ The 
door is locked, the window is inaccessible. Was it 
through the chimney ? ” 

“ The grate is much too small,” he answered. “ I 
have already considered that possibility.” 

“ How then ? ” I persisted. 

“ You will not apply my precept,” he said, shak- 
ing his head. “ How often have I said to you that 
when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever 
remains, however improhahle, must be the truth ? We 
know that he did not come through the door, the 
window, or the chimney. We also know that he 
could not have been concealed in the room, as there 
is no concealment possible. Whence, then, did he 
come ? ” 

He came through the hole in the roof,” I cried. 

“ Of course he did. He must have done so. If 
you will have the kindness to hold the lamp for me, 


THR SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


55 


we shall now extend our researches to the room 
above — the secret room in which the treasure was 
found.” 

He mounted the steps, and seizing a rafter with 
either hand, he swung himself up into the garret. 
Then, lying on his face, he reached down for the 
lamp and held it while I followed him. 

The chamber in which we found ourselves was 
about ten feet one way and six the other. The floor 
was formed by the rafters, with thin lath and plas- 
ter between them, so that in walking one had to 
step from beam to beam. The roof ran up to an apex, 
and was evidently the inner shell of the true roof of 
the house. There was no furniture of any sort, and 
the accumulated dust of years lay thick upon the 
floor. 

“ Here you are, you see,” said Sherlock Holmes, 
putting his hand against the sloping wall. “ This is 
a trap-door which leads out on to the roof. I can 
press it back, and here is the roof itself, sloping at a 
gentle angle. This, then, is the way by which Hum- 
ber One entered. Let us see if we can find some 
other traces of his individuality.” 

He held down the lamp to the floor, and as he did 
so I saw for the second time that night a startled, 
surprised look come over his face. For myself, as I 
followed his gaze, my skin was cold under my clothes. 
The floor was covered thickly with the prints of a 
naked foot — clear, well defined, perfectly formed, 
but scarce half the size of those of an ordinary man. 

“ Holmes,” I said, in a whisper, a child has done 
this horrid thing ” 


56 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


He had recovered his self-possession in an instant. 
“ I was staggered for the moment,” he said, “ but 
the thing is quite natural. My memory failed me, 
or I should have been able to foretell it. There is 
nothing more to be learned here. Let us go down.” 

“ What is your theory, then, as to those foot- 
marks ? ” I asked, eagerly, when we had regained 
the lower room once more. 

“ My dear Watson, try a lit ole analysis yourself,” 
said he, with a touch of impatience. “ You know 
my methods. Apply them ; and it will be instruc- 
tive to compare results.” 

“ I cannot conceive anything which will cover the 
facts,” I answered. 

“ It will be clear enough to you soon,” he said, in 
an off-hand way. “ I think that there is nothing 
else of importance here, but I will look.” He 
whipped out his lens and a tape-measure, and com- 
paring, examining, with his long thin nose only a 
few inches from the planks, and his beady eyes 
gleaming and deep-set like those of a bird. So 
swift, silent, and furtive were his movements, like 
those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent, 
that I could not but think what a terrible criminal 
he would have made had he turned his energy and 
sagacity against the law instead of exerting them in 
its defense. As he hunted about, he kept muttering 
to himself, and finally he broke out into a loud crow 
of delight. 

“We are certainly in luck,” said he. “We ought 
to have very little trouble now. Number One has 
had the misfortune to tread in the creosote. You 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


57 


can see the outline of the edge of his small foot here 
at the right of this evil-smelling mess. The carboy 
has been cracked, you see, and the stuff has leaked 
out.” 

“What then?” I asked. 

“Why, we have got him, that’s all,” said he. “I 
know a dog that would follow that scent to the 
world’s end. If a pack can track a trailed herring 
across a shire, how far can a specially trained hound 
follow so pungent a smell as this ? It sounds like a 
sum in the rule of three. The answer should give 
us the — But halloo ! here are the accredited repre- 
sentatives of the law.” 

Heavy steps and the clamor of loud voices were 
audible from below, and the hall door shut with a 
loud crash. 

“ Before they come,” said Holmes, “ just put 
your hand here on this poor fellow’s arm, and here 
on his leg. What do you feel ? ” 

“ The muscles are as hard as a board,” I answered. 

“ Quite so. The}’^ are in a state of extreme con- 
traction, far exceeding the usual ‘ rigor mortis.’ 
Coupled with this distortion of the face, this Hippo- 
cratic smile, or ‘ risus sardonicus,’ as the old writers 
called it, what conclusion would it suggest to your 
mind ? ” 

“Death from some powerful vegetable alkaloid,” 
I answered ; “ some strychnine-like substance which 
would produce tetanus.” 

“ That was the idea which occurred to me the in- 
stant I saw the drawn muscles of the face. On get- 
ting into the room I at once looked for the means 


58 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


by which the poison had entered the system. As 
you saw, I discovered a thorn which had been 
driven or shot with no great force into the scalp. 
You observe that the part struck was that which 
would be turned toward the hole in the ceiling if 
the man were erect in his chair. JSTow examine this 
thorn.” 

I took it up gingerly and held it in the light of 
the lantern. It was long, sharp, and black, with a 
glazed look near the point as though some gummy 
substance had dried upon it. The blunt end had 
been trimmed and rounded off with a knife. 

“ Is that an English thorn ? ” he asked. 

“ No, it certainly is not.” 

“ With all these data you should be able to draw 
some just inference. But here are the regulars ; so 
the auxiliary forces may beat a retreat.” 

As he spoke, the steps which had been coming 
nearer sounded loudly on the passage, and a very 
stout, portly man in a gray suit strode heavily into 
the room. He was red-faced, burly and plethoric, 
with a pair of very small twinkling eyes which 
looked keenly out from between swollen and puffy 
pouches. He was closely followed by an inspector 
in uniform, and by the still palpitating Thaddeus 
Sholto. 

“ Here’s a business ! ” he cried, in a muffled, husky 
voice. “ Here’s a pretty business ! But who are 
all these ? Why, the house seems to be as full as a 
rabbit-warren.” 

“ I think you must recollect me, Mr. Athelney 
Jones,” said Holmes quietly. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


5 ^ 


“ Why, of course I do ! ” he wheezed. “ It’s Mr. 
Sherlock Holmes, the theorist. Eemember you I 
I’ll never forget hov you lectured us all on causes, 
and inferences, and e ffects in the Bishopgate jewel 
case. It’s true you set us on the right track, but 
you’ll own now that it was more by good luck than 
good guidance.” 

“ It was a piece of very simple reasoning.” 

“ Oh, come, now, come ! Never be ashamed to 
own up. But what is all this? Bad business! 
Bad business ! Stern facts here — no room for theo- 
ries. How lucky that I happened to be out at Nor- 
wood over another case ! I was at the station when 
the message arrived. What d’you think the man 
died of ? ” 

“ Oh, this is hardly a case for me to theorize over,” 
said Holmes, dryly. 

“ No, no. Still, we can’t deny that you hit the 
nail on the head sometimes. Dear me ! Door locked, 
I understand. Jewels worth half a million missing. 
How was the window ? ” 

‘‘ Fastened ; but there are steps on the sill.” 

“Well, well; if it Avas fastened, the steps could 
have nothing to do Avith the matter. That’s com- 
mon sense. Man might have died in a fit ; but then 
the jcAvels are missing. Ha ! I have a theory. 
These flashes come upon me at times. Just step 
outside, sergeant, and you, Mr. Sholto. Your friend 
can remain. What do you think of this. Holmes ? 
Sholto Avas, on his own confession, with his brother 
last night. The brother died in a fit, on AA^hich 
Sholto AA alked off with the treasure. How’s that ? ” 


60 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ On which the dead man very considerately got 
up and locked the door on the inside.” 

“ Hum ! There’s a flaw there. Let us apply 
common sense to the matter. This Thaddeus Sholto 
was with his brother ; there was a quarrel ; so much 
we know. The brother is dead and the jewels are 
gone. So much also we know. No one saw the 
brother from the time Thaddeus left him. His bed 
had not been slept in. Thaddeus is evidently in in 
most disturbed state of mind. His appearance is-—, 
well, not attractive. You see that I am weaving 
my web round Thaddeus. The net begins to close 
upon him.” 

“ You are not quite in possession of the facts 
yet,” said Holmes. “ This splinter of wood, which 
I have every reason to believe to be poisoned, was 
in the man’s scalp where you still see the mark ; 
this card, inscribed as you see it, was on the table ; 
and beside it lay this rather curious stone-headed in- 
strument. How does all this flt into your theory ? ” 

“ Confirms it in every respect,” said the fat detec- 
tive, pompously. “ House is full of Indian curiosi- 
ties. Thaddeus brought this up, and if this splinter 
be poisonous Thaddeus may as well have made 
murderous use of it as any other man. The card is 
some hocus-pocus — a blind, as like, as not. The 
only question is, How did he depart ? Ah, of course, 
here is a hole in the roof.” With great activity, 
considering his bulk, he sprung up the steps and 
squeezed through into the garret, and immediately 
afterward we heard his exulting voice proclaiming 
^hat he had found the trap-door. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


61 


“He can find something,” remarked Holmes, 
shrugging his shoulders. “ He has occasional glim- 
merings of reason. FI n^y a jpas des sots si incom- 
modes que ceux qui ont de V esprit! ” 

“You see!” said Athelney Jones, reappearing 
down the steps again. “ Facts are better than mere 
theories, after all. My view of the case is con- 
firmed. There is a trap-door communicating with 
the roof, and it is partly open.” 

“ It was I who opened it.” 

“ Oh, indeed ! You did notice it, then ? ” He 
seemed a little crestfallen at the discovery. “ Well, 
whoever noticed it, it shows how our gentleman got 
away. Inspector ! ” 

“ Yes, sir,” from the passage. 

“ Ask Mr. Sholto, to step this way. Mr. Sholto, 
it is my duty to inform you that anything which 
you may say will be used against you. I arrest you 
in the queen’s name as being concerned in the death 
of your brother.” 

“ There, now ! Didn’t I tell you ? ” cried the poor 
little man, throwing out his hands, and looking from 
one to the other of us. 

“Don’t trouble yourself about it, Mr. Sholto,” 
said Holmes. “ I think that I can engage to clear 
you of the charge.” 

“Don’t promise too much, Mr. Theorist — don’t 
promise too much ! ” snapped the detective. “ You 
may find it a harder matter than you think.” 

“ Kot only will I clear him, Mr. Jones, but I will 
make you a free present of the name and descrip- 
tion of one of the two people who were in the room 


62 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


last night. His name, I have every reason to be- 
lieve, is Jonathan Small. He is a poorly educated 
man ; small, active, with his right leg off, and wear- 
ing a wooden stump which is worn away upon the 
inner side. His left boot has a coarse, square-toed 
sole, with an iron band round the heel. He is a 
middle-aged man, much sunburned, and has been a 
convict. These few indications may be of some 
assistance to you, coupled with the fact that there 
is a good deal of skin missing from the palm of his 
hand. The other man — ” 

“ Ah ! the other man ? ” asked Athelney Jones, in 
a sneering voice, but impressed none the less, as I 
could easily see, by the precision of the other’s 
manner. 

“ Is a rather curious person,” said Sherlock 
Holmes, turning upon his heel. “ I hope before 
very long to be able to introduce you to the pair of 
them. A word with you, Watson.” 

He led me out to the head of the stair. “ This un- 
expected occurrence,” he said, “ has caused us rather 
to lose sight of the original purpose of our journey.” 

I have just been thinking so,” I answered. “ It 
is not right that Miss Mors tan should remain in this 
stricken house.” 

“Ho. Y ou must escort her home. She lives with 
Mrs. Cecil Forrester, in Lower Camberwell ; so it is 
not very far. I will wait for you, here, if you will 
drive out again. Or perhaps you are too tired ? ” 

“ By no means. I don’t think I could rest until I 
know more of this fantastic business. I have seen 
something of the rough side of life, but I give you 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


63 


my word that this quick succession of strange sur- 
prises tomight has shaken my nerve completely. 
I should like, however, to see the matter through 
with you, now that I have got so far.” 

“ Your presence will be of great service to me,” 
he answered. “We shall work the case out inde- 
pendently, and leave this fellow Jones to exult over 
any mare’s-nest which he may choose to construct. 
When you have dropped Miss Morstan I wish you 
to go on to hfo. 3 Pinchin Lane, down near the 
water’s edge, at Lambeth. The third house on the 
right-hand side is a bird-stuflfer’s ; Sherman is the 
name. You will see a weasel holding a young rabbit 
in the window. Rouse old Sherman up, and tell him 
with my compliments, that I want Toby at once. 
You will bring Toby back in the cab with you.” 

“ A dog, I suppose ? ” 

“Yes, a queer mongrel, with a most amazing 
power of scent. I would rather have Toby’s help 
than that of the whole detective force of London.” 

“ I shall bring him, then,” said I. “ It is one now. 
I ought to be back before three, if I can get a fresh 
horse.” 

“ And I, said Holmes, “ shall see what I can learn 
from Mrs. Bernstone, and from the Indian ;:;ervant, 
who, Mr. Thaddeus tell me, sleeps in the next gar- 
ret. Then I shall study the great Jones’s methods, 
and listen to his not too delicate sarcasms. Wir 
sind gewohnt^ dass die Menschen 'verJwhnen was sie 
nicht 'oerstehen? Goethe is always pithy.'’ 


64 


THE SIGN OF THE FOU*. 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE ESPISODE OF THE BARREL. 

The police had brought a cab with them, and in 
this I escorted Miss Morstan back to her home. Af- 
ter the angelic fashion of women, she had borne 
trouble with a calm face as long as there Avas some 
one weaker than herself to support, and I had found 
her bright and placid by the side of the frightened 
housekeeper. In the cab, however, she first turned 
faint, and then burst into a passion of Aveeping, so 
sorely had she been tried by the adventures of the 
night. She has told me since that she thought me 
cold and distant upon that journey. She little 
guessed the struggle Avithin my breast, or the effort 
of self-restraint which held me back. My sympa- 
thies and my love went out to her, even as my hand 
had in the garden. I felt that years of the conven- 
tionalities of life could no : teach me to know her 
sweet, brave nature as had this one day of strange 
experiences. Yet there v^ere tAvo thoughts Avhich 
sealed the words of affection upon my lips. She 
was weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. 
It Avas to take her at a disadvantage to obtrude love 
upon her at such a time. Worse still she was rich. 
If Holmes’s researches were successful^ she would be 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


65 


an heiress. Was it fair, was it honorable, that a 
half pay surgeon should take such advantage of an 
intimacy which chance had brought about ? Might 
she not look upon me as a mere vulgar fortune-seeker ? 
I could not bear to risk that such a thought should 
cross her mind. This Agra treasure intervened like 
an impassable barrier between us. 

It was nearly two o’clock when we reached Mrs. 
Cecil Forrester’s. The servants had retired hours 
ago, but Mrs. Forrester had been so interested by 
the strange message which Miss Morstan had 
received, that she had sat up in the hope of her 
return. She opened the door herself, a middle-aged, 
graceful woman, and it gave me joy to see how 
tenderly her arm stole round the other’s waist, and 
how motherly was the voice in which she greeted 
her. She was clearly no mere paid dependent, but 
an honored friend. I was introduced, and Mrs. 
Forrester earnestly begged me to step in and to tell 
her our adventures. I explained, however, the im- 
portance of my errand, and promised faithfully to 
call and report any progress which we might make 
with the case. As we drove away I stole a glance 
back, and I still seem to see that little group on 
the step, the two graceful, clinging figures, the half- 
opened door, the hall light shining through stained 
glass, the barometer, and the bright stair-rods. It was 
soothing to catch even that passing glimpse of a 
tranquil English home in the midst of the wild, dark 
business which had absorbed us. 

And the more I thought of what had happened, 
the wilder and darker it grew. I reviewed the 
5 


66 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


whole extraordinary sequence of events as I rattled 
on through the silent, gas-lighted streets. There 
was the original problem : that at least was pretty 
clear now. The death of Captain Morstan, the 
sending of the pearls, the advertisement, the letter 
— we had had light upon all those events. They 
had only led us, however, to a deeper and far more 
tragic mystery. The Indian treasure, the curious 
plan found among Morstan ’s baggage, the strange 
scene at Major Sholto’s death, the rediscovery of 
the treasure immediately followed by the murder 
of the discoverer, the very singular accompaniments 
to the crime, the footsteps, the remarkable weapons, 
the words upon the card, corresponding with those 
upon Captain Morstan’s chart — here was indeed a 
labyrinth in which a man less singularly endowed 
than my fellow-lodger might well despair at ever 
finding the clew. 

Pinchin Lane was a row of shabby two-storied 
brick houses in the lower quarter of Lambeth. I 
had to knock for some time at No. 3 before I could 
make any impression. At last, however, there 
was the glint of a candle behind the blind, and a 
face looked out at the upper window. 

“ Go on, you drunken vagabond ! ” said the face. 
“ If you kick up any more row I’ll open the kennels 
and let out forty-three dogs at you.” 

“ If you’ll let one out it’s just what I have come 
for,” said I. 

“ Go on ! ” 3^elled the voice. ‘‘ So help me gra- 
cious, I have a wiper in this bag, an’ I’ll drop it OQ 
your ’ead if you don’t hook it I ” 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


67 


“ But I want a clog,” I cried. 

“ I won’t be argued with ! ” shouted Mr. Sherman. 
“Now stand clear; for when Isay ‘three,’ down 
goes the wiper.” 

“ Mr. Sherlock Holmes — ” I began ; but the words 
had a most magical effect, for the window instantly 
slammed down, and within a minute the door was 
unbarred and open. Mr. Sherman was a lanky, 
lean old man, with stooping shoulders, a stringy 
neck, and blue-tinted glasses. 

“ A friend of Mr. Sherlock is always welcome,” 
said he. “ Step in, sir. Keep clear of the badger ; 
for he bites. Ah, naughty, naughty ! would you 
take a nip at the gentleman ? ” This to a stoat 
which thrust its wicked head and red eyes between 
the bars of its cage. “ Don’t mind that, sir ; it’s 
only a slow-worm. It hain’t got no fangs, so I 
gives it the run o’ the room, for it keeps the beetles 
down. You must not mind my bein’ just a little 
short wi’ you at first, for I’m guyed by the children, 
and there’s many a one just comes down this lane 
to rouse me up. What was it that Mr. Sherlock 
Holmes wanted, sir ? ” 

“ He wanted a dog of yours.” 

“ Ah ! that would be Toby.” 

“ Yes, Toby was the name.” 

“ Toby lives at No. 7, on the left here. He moved 
slowly forward with his candle among the queer 
animal family which he had gathered round him. 
In the uncertain, shadowy light I could see dimly 
that there were glancing, glimmering eyes peep- 
ing down at us from every cranny and corner. 


68 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Even the rafters above our heads were line<J ^ 
solemn fowls, who lazily shifted their weight from 
one leg to the other as our voices disturbed their 
slumbers. 

Toby proved to be an ugly, long-haired, lop-eared 
creature, half spaniel and half lurcher, brown and 
white in color, with a very clumsy waddling gait. 
It accepted, after some hesitation, a lump of sugar 
which the old naturalist handed to me, and having 
thus sealed an alliance, it followed me to the cab, 
and made no difficulties about accompanying me. 
It had just struck three on the Palace clock when I 
found myself back once more at Pondicherry Lodge. 
The ex-prize-fighter, McMurdo, had, I found, been 
arrested as an accessory, and both he and Mr. 
Sholto had been marched off to the station. Two 
constables guarded the narrow gate, but they al- 
lowed me to pass with the dog on my mentioning 
the detective’s name. 

Holmes was standing on the doorstep, with his 
hands in his pockets, smoking his pipe. 

“ Ah, you have him there ! ” said he. “ Good 
dog, then ! Athelney Jones has gone. We have 
had an immense display of energy since you left. 
He has arrested not only friend Thaddeus, but the 
gatekeeper, the housekeeper, and the Indian servant. 
We have the place to ourselves but for a sergeant 
Up-stairs. Leave the dog here and come up.” 

We tied Toby to the hall table, and reascended 
the stairs. The room was as we had left it, save that 
a sheet had been draped over the central figure. A 
weary-looking police-sergeant reclined in the corner, 


THE SIGN OP THE POUR. 


69 


‘‘ Lend me your bulPs-eye, sergeant,” said my 
companion. “ Now tie this bit of card round my 
neck, so as to hang it in front of me. Thank 3^ou. 
Now I must kick off my boots and stockings. Just 
you carry them down with you, Watson. I am 
going to do a little climbing. And dip my hanker- 
chief into the creosote. That will do. Now come 
up into the garret with me for a moment.” 

We clambered up through the hole. Holmes 
turned his light once more upon the footsteps in the 
dust. 

“ I wish particularly to notice these foot-marks,” 
he said. “ Do you observe anything noteworthy 
about them ? ” 

“ They belong,” I said, “ to a child or a small 
woman.” 

“ Apart from their size, though. Is there nothing 
else?” 

‘‘ They appear to be much as other foot-marks.” 

“ Not at all. Look here ! This is the print of a 
right foot in the dust. Now I make one with 
my naked foot beside it. What is the chief differ- 
ence ? ” 

“ Your toes are all cramped together. The other 
print has each toe distinctly divided.” 

“ Quite so. That is the point. Bear that in 
mind. Now, would you kindl}^ step over to that 
flap- window and smell the edge of the Avood-work ? 
I shall stay over here as I have this handkerchief in 
my hand.” 

I did as he directed, and was instantly conscious 
of a strong tarry smell. 


70 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ That is where he put his foot in getting out. li 
you can trace him, I should think that Toby will 
have no difficulty. Now run down-stairs, loose the 
dog, and look out for Blondin.” 

By the time that I got out into the grounds, Sher- 
lock Holmes was on the roof, and I could see him 
like an enormous glow-worm crawling very slowly 
along the ridge. I lost sight of him behind a stack 
of chimneys, but he presently reappeared, and then 
vanished once more upon the opposite side. When 
I made my way round there I found him seated at 
one of the corner eaves. 

‘‘ That you, Watson ? ” he cried. 

«Yes.” 

‘‘This is the place. What is that black thing 
down there ? ” 

“ A water-barrel.” 

“Top on it?” 

“Yes.” 

“No sign of a ladder ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Confound the fellow ! It’s a most break-neck 
place. I ought to be able to come down where he 
could climb up. The water-pipe feels pretty firm. 
Here goes, anyhow.” 

There was a shuffling of the feet, and the lantern 
began to come steadily down the side of the wall. 
Then with a light spring he came on to the barrel, 
and from there to the earth. 

“ It was easy to follow him,” he said, drawing on 
his stockings and boots. “ Tiles were loosened the 
whole way along, and in his hurry he had dropped 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 71 

this. It confirms my diagnosis, as you doctors ex- 
press it.” 

The object which he held up to me was a small 
pocket or pouch woven out of colored grasses and 
with a few tawdry beads strung round it. In shape 
and size it was not unlike a cigarette-case. Inside 
were half a dozen spines of dark wood, sharp at one 
end and rounded at the other, like that which had 
struck Bartholomew Sholto. 

“ The}^ are hellish things,” said he. “ Look out 
that you don’t prick yourself. I’m delighted to 
have them, for the chances are that they are all be 
has. There is the less fear of you or me finding one 
in our skin before long. I would sooner face a 
Martini bullet myself. Are you game for a s.x-mile 
trudge, Watson ? ” 

“ Certainly,” I answered. 

Your leg will stand it ? ” 

‘‘ Oh, yes.” 

“ Here you are, doggy ! Good old Toby ! Smell 
it, Toby ; smell it 1 ” He pushed the creosote hand- 
kerchief under the dog’s nose, while the creature 
stood with its fluff}^ legs separated, and with a most 
comical cock to its head, like a connoisseur sniffing 
the bouquet of a famous vintage. Holmes then 
threw the handkerchief to a distance, fastened a 
stout cord to the mongrel’s collar, and led him to 
the foot of the water-barrel. The creature instantly 
broke into a succession of high, tremulous yelps, and, 
with his nose on the ground and his tail in the air, 
pattered off upon the trail at a pace which strained 
his leash and kept us at the top of our speed. 


72 


THE SIGN OF THE POUR, 


The east had been gradually whitening, and we 
could now see some distance in the cold, gray light. 
The square, massive house, with its black, empty 
windows and high, bare walls, towered up, sad and 
forlorn, behind us. Our course led right across the 
grounds, in and out among the trenches and pits 
with which they were scarred and intersected. The 
whole place, with its scattered dirt-heaps and ill- 
grown shrubs, had a blighted, ill-omened look which 
harmonized with the black tragedy which hung 
over it. 

On reaching the boundary wall Toby ran along, 
whining eagerly, underneath its shadow, and stopped 
finally in a corner screened by a young beech. 
Where the two walls joined, several bricks had been 
loosened, and the crevices left were worn down and 
rounded upon the lower side, as though they had 
frequently been used as a ladder. Holmes clam- 
bered up, and, taking the dog from me, he dropped 
it over upon the other side. 

There’s the print of wooden-leg’s hand,” he 
remarked, as I mounted up beside him. ‘‘You see 
the slight smudge of blood upon the white plaster. 
What a lucky thing it is that we have had no very 
heavy rain since yesterday ! The scent will lie upon 
the road in spite of their eight-and-twenty hours’ 
start. 

I confess that I had my doubts myself when I 
reflected upon the great traffic which had passed 
along the London road in the interval. My fears 
were soon appeased, however. Toby never hesitated 
or swerved, but waddled on in his peculiar rolling 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 73 

fashion. Clearly, the pungent smell of the creosote 
rose high above all other contending scents. 

“ Do not imagine,” said Holmes, “ that I depend 
for my success in this case upon the mere chance of 
one of these fellows having put his foot in the chemi- 
cal. I have knowledge now which would enable me 
to trace them in many different ways. This, how- 
ever, is the readiest, and, since fortune has put it 
into our hands, I should be culpable if I neglected it. 
It has, however, prevented the case from becoming 
the pretty little intellectual problem which it at one 
time promised to be. There might have been some 
credit to be gained out of it but for this too pal- 
pable clew.” 

“ There is credit, and to spare,” said I. I assure 
you, Holmes, that I marvel at the means by which 
you obtain your results in this case, even more than 
I did in the Jefferson Hope murder. The thing 
seems to me to be deeper and more inexplicable. 
How, for example, could you describe with such 
confidence the wooden-legged man ? ” 

“ Pshaw, my dear boy ! it was simplicity itself. 
1 don’t wish to be theatrical. It is all patent and 
above-board. Two officers who are in command of 
a convict-guard learn an important secret as to buried 
treasure. A map is drawn for them by an English- 
man named Jonathan Small. You remember that 
we saw the name upon the chart in Captain Mor- 
stan’s possession. He had signed it in behalf of him- 
self and his associates — the sign of the four, as he 
somewhat dramatically called it. Aided by this 
chart, the officers — or one of them — gets the treasure 


74 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


and brings it to England, leaving, we will suppose, 
some condition under which he received it unful- 
filled. Now, then, why did not Jonathan Small get 
the treasure himself ? The answer is obvious. The 
chart is dated at a time when Morstan was brought 
into close association with convicts. Jonathan 
Small did not get the treasure because he and his 
associates were themselves convicts and could not 
get away.” 

“ But this is mere speculation,” said I. 

“ It is more than that. It is the only hypothesis 
which covers the facts. Let us see how it fits in 
with the sequel. Major Sholto remains at peace for 
some years, happy in the possession of his treasure. 
Then he receives a letter from India which gives 
him a great fright. What was that ? ” 

“ A letter to say that the men whom he had 
wronged had been set free.” 

“ Or had escaped. That is much more likely, for 
he would have known what their term of imprison- 
ment was. It would not have been a surprise to 
him. What does he do then? He guards himself 
against a wooden-legged man — a white man, mark 
you, for he mistakes a white tradesman for him, and 
actually fires a pistol at him. Now, only one white 
man’s name is on the chart. The others are Hin- 
doos or Mohammedans. There is no other white 
man. Therefore we may say with confidence that 
the wooden-legged man is identical with Jonathan 
Small. Does the reasoning strike you being 
faulty ? ” 

“ No ; it is clear and concise.” 


THE SIGN OB" THE B"OUR. 


75 


Well, now, let us put ourselves in the place of 
Jonathan Small. Let us look at it from his point of 
view. He comes to England with the double idea 
of regaining what he would consider to be bis rights 
and of having his revenge upon the man who had 
wronged him. He found out where Sholto lived, 
and very possibly he established communications 
with some one inside the house. There is this butler, 
Lai Kao, whom we have not seen. Mrs. Bernstone 
gives him far from a good character. Small could 
not find out, however, where the treasure was hid, 
for no one ever knew, save the major and one faith- 
ful servant who had died. Suddenly Small learns 
that the major is on his death-bed. In a frenzy lest 
the secret of the treasure die with him, he runs the 
gauntlet of the guards, makes his way to the dying 
man’s window, and is only deterred from entering 
by the presence of his two sons. Mad with hate, 
however, against the dead man, he enters the room 
that night, searches his private papers in the hope 
of discovering some memorandum relating to the 
treasure, and finally leaves a memento of his visit 
in the short inscription upon the card. He had 
doubtless planned beforehand that should he slay 
the major he would leave some such record upon 
the body as a sign that it was not a common murder, 
but, from the point of view of the four associates, 
something in the nature of an act of justice. Whim- 
sical and bizarre conceits of this kind are common 
enough in the annals of crime, and usually afford 
valuable indications as to tho criminal. Do you 
follow all this ? ’’ 


76 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ Very clearly.” 

“ Now, what could Jonathan Small do ? He could 
only continue to keep a secret watch upon the efforts 
made to find the treasure. Possibly he leaves Eng- 
land and only comes back at intervals. Then comes 
the discovery of the garret, and he is instantly in- 
formed of it. We again trace the presence of some 
confederate in the household. Jonathan, with his 
wooden leg, is utterly unable to reach the lofty 
room of Bartholomew Sholto. He takes with 
him, however, a rather curious associate, who gets 
over this difficulty, but dips his naked foot into 
creosote, whence come Toby, and a six-mile limp 
for a half-pay officer with a damaged Achillis 
tendo.” 

“ But it was the associate, and not Jonathan, who 
committed the crime.” 

“ Quite so. And rather to Jonathan’s disgust, to 
judge by the way he stamped about when he got 
into the room. He bore no grudge against Barthol- 
omew Sholto, and would have preferred if he could 
have been simply bound and gagged. He did not 
wish to put his head in a halter. There was no help 
for it, however; the savage instincts of his com- 
panion had broken out, and the poison had done its 
work ; so Jonathan Small left his record, lowered 
the treasure-box to the ground, and followed it 
himself. That was the train of events as far as I 
can decipher them. Of course as to his personal 
appearance he must be’ middle-aged, and must bo 
sunburned after serving his time in such an oven as 
the Andamans. His height is readily calculated 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


77 


from the length of his stride, and we know that he 
was bearded. His hairiness was the one point 
which impressed itself upon Thaddeus Sholto when 
he saw him at the window. 1 don’t know that there 
is anything else.” 

“ The associate ? ” 

“ Ah, well, there is no great mystery in that. 
But you will know all about it soon enough. How 
sweet the morning air is ! See how that one little 
cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic 
flamingo. How the red rim of the sun pushes itself 
over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good 
many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who is on a 
stranger errand than you and 1. How small we feel 
with our petty ambitions and strivings in the pres- 
ence of the great elemental forces of nature ! Are 
you well up in your J ean Paul ? ” 

“ Fairly so. I worked back to him through 
Carlyle.” 

“ That was like following the brook to the parent 
lake. He makes one curious but profound remark. 
It is that the chief proof of a man’s real greatness 
lies in his perception of his own smallness. It 
argues, you see, a power of comparison and of ap- 
preciation, which is in itself a proof of nobility. 
There is much food for thought in Kichter. You 
Lave not a pistol, have you ? ” 

“ I have my stick.” 

“ It is just possible that we may need something 
of the sort if we get to their lair. Jonathan I shall 
leave to. you, but if the other turns nasty I shall 
shoot him dead.” He took out his revolver as he 


78 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


spoke, and, having loaded two of the chambers, 
he put it back into the right-hand pocket of his 
jacket. 

We had during this time, been following the guid- 
ance of Toby down the half-rural, villa-lined roads 
which lead to the metropolis. ^Now, however, we 
were beginning to come among continuous streets, 
where laborers and dockraen were already astir, and 
slatternly women Avere taking down shutters and 
brushing doorsteps. At the square-topped corner 
public-house business was just beginning, and rough- 
looking men were emerging, rubbing their sleeves 
across their beards after their morning Avet. Strange 
dogs sauntered up, and stared AA^onderingly at us as 
Ave passed, but our inimitable Toby looked neither 
to the right nor to the left, but trotted onward with 
his nose to the ground and an occasional eager 
Avhine, which spoke of a hot scent. 

We had traversed Streatham, Brixton, Camber- 
well, and now found ourselves in Kennington Lane, 
having borne away through the side streets to the 
east of the Oval. The men Avhom we pursued 
seemed to have taken a curiously zigzag road, with 
the idea probably of escaping obserA^ation. They 
had never kept to the main road if a parallel side 
street Avould serve their turn. At the foot of Ken- 
nington Lane they had edged away to the left through 
Bond Street and Miles Street. Where the latter 
street turns into Knight’s Place, Toby ceased to ad- 
vance, but began to run backward and forward Avith 
one ear cocked and the other drooping, the very 
picture of canine indecision. Then he Avaddled round 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 79 

in circles, looking up to us from time to time, as if 
to ask for sympathy in his embarrassment. 

“ What the deuce is the matter with the dog ? ” 
growled Holmes. “ They surely would not take a 
cab, or go olf in a balloon.” 

“ Perhaps they stood here for some time,” I sug- 
gested. 

“Ah! it’s all right. He’s off again,” said my 
companion, in a tone of relief. 

He was indeed off ; for, after sniffing round again, 
he suddenly made up his mind, and darted away 
with an energy and determination such as he had 
not yet shown. The scent appeared to be much 
hotter than before, for he had not even to put his 
nose on the ground, but tugged at his leash, and 
tried to break into a run. I could see by the gleam 
in Holmes’s eyes that he thought we were nearing 
the end of our journey. 

Our course now ran do\vn Hine Elms until we came 
to Broderick and Nelson’s large timber-yard, just 
past the White Eagle tavern. Here the dog, frantic 
with excitement, turned down through the side gate 
into the inclosure, where the sawyers were already 
at work. On the dog raced through sawdust and 
shavings, down an alley, round a passage, between 
two wood-piles, and finally, with a triumphant yelp, 
sprung upon a large barrel, which still stood upon 
the hand-trolley on which it had been brought. 
With lolling tongue and blinking eyes, Toby stood 
upon the cask, looking from one to the other of us 
for some sign of appreciation. The staves of the 
barrel and the wheels of the trolley were smeared 


80 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


with a dark liquid, and the whole air was heavy with 
the smell of creosote. 

Sherlock Holmes and I looked blankly at each 
other, and then burst simultaneously into an uncon- 
trollable fit of laughter. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


81 


CHAPTER VIIL 

THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS. 

^What now?” I asked. “Toby has lost his 
character for infallibility.” 

“ He acted according to his lights,” said Holmes, 
lifting him down from the barrel and walking him 
out of the timber-yard. “ If you consider how much 
creosote is carried about London in one day, it is no 
great wonder that our trail should have been crossed. 
It is much used now, especially for the seasoning of 
wood. Poor Toby is not to blame.” 

“We must get on the main scent again, I suppose.” 

“Yes. And, fortunately, we have no distance to 
go. Evidently what puzzled the dog at the corner 
of Knight’s Place was that there were two different 
trails running in opposite directions. We took the 
wrong one. It only remains to follow the other.” 

There was no difficulty about this. On leading 
Toby to the place where he had committed his fault, 
he cast about in a wide circle, and finally dashed 
off in a fresh direction. 

“We must take care that he does not now bring 
us to the place where the creosote barrel came 
from,” I observed. 

“ I had thought of that. But you notice that he 


8^ 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


keeps on the pavement, whereas the barrel passed 
down the roadway. No, we are on the true scent 
now.” 

It tended down toward the river-side, running 
through Belmont Place and Prince’s Street. At 
the end of Broad Street it ran right down to the 
water’s edge, where there was a small wooden wharf. 
Toby led us to the very edge of this, and there stood 
whining, looking out on the dark current beyond. 

“We are out of luck,” said Holmes. “ They have ^ 
taken to a boat here.” Several small punts and 
skiffs were lying about in the water on the edge of 
the wharf. We took Toby round to each in turn, 
but, though he sniffed earnestly, he made no sign. 

Close to the rude landing-stage was a small brick 
house, with a wooden placard slung out through 
the second window. “ Mordecai Smith ” was printed 
across it in large letters, and, underneath, “ Boats 
to hire by the hour or day.” A second inscription 
above the door informed us that a steam launch was 
kept — a statement which was confirmed by a great 
pile of coke upon the jetty. Sherlock Holmes 
looked slowly round, and his face assumed an 
ominous expression. 

“ This looks bad,” said he. “ These fellows are 
sharper than I expected. They seem to have covered 
their tracks. There has, I fear, been preconcerted 
management here.” 

He was approaching the door of the house, when 
it opened, and a little, curly-headed lad of six came 
running out, followed by a stoutish, red-faced 
woman, with a large sponge in her hand. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


S3 


“ You come back and be washed, Jack ! ” she 
shouted. “ Come back, you young imp ; for if your 
father comes home and finds you like that, he’ll let 
us hear of it ! ” 

“ Dear little chap ! ” said Holmes, strategically, 
‘‘What a rosy-cheeked young rascal ! How, Jack, 
is there anything you would like ? ” 

The youth pondered for a moment. “ I’d like a 
shillin’,” said he. 

“ Hothing you would like better ? ” 

“I’d like two shillin’ better,” the prodigy an- 
swered, after some thought. 

“Here you are, then! Catch! A fine child, 
- Mrs. Smith.” 

“ Lor’ bless you, sir, he is that, and forward. He 
gets a’most too much for me to manage, ’specially 
when my man is away days at a time.” 

“ Away, is he ? ” said Holmes, in a disappointed 
voice. “ I am sorry for that, for I wanted to speak 
to Mr. Smith.” 

“He’s been away since yesterday mornin’, sir, 
and, truth to tell, I am beginning to feel frightened 
about him. But if it was about a boat, sir, maybe 
I could serve as well.” 

“ I wanted to hire his steam launch.” 

. “ Why, bless you, sir, it is in the steam launch 

that he has gone. That’s what puzzles me ; for I 
know there ain’t more coals in her than would take 
her to about Woolwich and back. If he’d been 
away in the barge I’d ha’ thought nothin’ ; for many 
a time a job has taken him as far as Gravesend, 
and then if there was much doin’ there he might 


84 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


ha’ stayed over. But whf.t good is a steam launch 
without coals ? ” 

“ He might have bought some at a wharf down 
the river.” 

“ He might, sir, but it weren’t his way. Many a 
time I’ve heard him call out at the prices they 
charge for a few odd bags. Besides, I don’t like 
that wooden-legged man, wi’ his ugly face and out- 
landish talk. What did he want alwaj^s knockin’ 
about here for ? ” 

“A wooden-legged man?” said Holmes, with 
bland surprise. 

“ Yes, sir ; a brown, monkey-faced chap that’s 
called more’n once for my old man. It was him 
that roused him up yesternight, and what’s more, 
my man knew he was cornin’, for he had steam up 
in the launch. I tell you straight, sir, I don’t feel 
easy in my mind about it.” 

“ But, my dear Mrs. Smith,” said Holmes, shrug- 
ging his shoulders, “ you are frightening yourself 
about nothing. How could you possibly tell that 
it was the w^ooden-legged man who came in the 
night ? 1 don’t quite understand how you can be 
so sure.” 

“ His voice, sir. I knew his voice, which is kind 
o’ thick and foggy. He tapped at the winder — 
about three it would be. ‘ Show a leg, matey,’ says 
he ; ‘ time to turn out guard.’ My old man woke 
Jim up — that’s my eldest — and away they went, 
without so much as a word to me. 1 could hear 
the wooden leg clackin’ on the stones.” 

“ And was this wooden-legged man alone ? ” 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 85 

“ Couldn’t say, I am sure, sir. I didn’t hea^ no 
one else.” 

“ I am sorry, Mrs. Smith, for I wanted a steam 
launch, and I have heard good reports of the — 
Let me see, what is her name ? ” 

“ The ‘ Aurora,’ sir.” 

“ Ah ! She’s not that old green launch with a 
yellow line, very broad in the beam ? ” 

“ ]N‘o, indeed. She’s as trim a little thing as any 
on the river. She’s been fresh painted, black with 
two red streaks.” 

“ Thanks. I hope that you will hear soon from 
Mr. Smith. I am going down the river ; and if I 
should see anything of the ‘ Aurora ’ I shall let him 
know that you are uneasy. A black funnel, you 
say ! ” 

“ No, sir. Black with a white band.” 

“ Ah, of course. It was the sides which were 
black. Good morning, Mrs. Smith. There is a 
boatman here with a wherry, "Watson. We shall 
take it and cross the river.” 

“ The main thing with people of that sort,” said 
Holmes, as we sat in the sheets of the wherry, “ is 
never to let them think that their information can 
be of the slightest importance to you. If you do, 
they will instantly shut up like an oyster. If you 
listen to them under protest, as it were, you are 
very likely to get what you want.” 

“ Our course now seems pretty clear,” said 1. 

“ What would you do then ? ” 

“ I would engage a launch and go down the track 
of the ‘ Aurora.’ ” 


86 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ My dear fellow, it would be a colossal task. She 
may have touched at any wharf on either side of 
the stream between here and Greenwich. Below 
the bridge there is a perfect labyrinth of landing- 
places for miles. It would take you days and days 
to exhaust them, if you set about it alone.” 

“ Employ the police then.” 

“ JSTo. I shall probably call Athelney Jones in at 
the last moment. He is not a bad fellow, and I 
should not like to do anything which would injure 
him professionally. But I have a fancy for work- 
ing it out myself, now that we have gone so far.” 

“ Could we advertise, then, asking for informa- 
tion from wharfingers ? ” 

“ Worse and worse ! Our men would know that 
the chase was hot at their heels, and they would be 
off out of the country. As it is, they are likely 
enough to leave, but as long as they think they are 
perfectly safe they will be in no hurry. Jones’s 
energy will be of use to us there, for his view of 
the case is sure to push itself into the daily press, 
and the runaways will think that every one is off on 
the wrong scent.” 

“ What are we to do then ? ” I asked, as we landed 
near Milbank Penitentiary. 

“ Take this hansom, drive home, have some break- 
fast, and get an hour’s sleep. It is quite on the 
cards that we may be afoot to-night again. Stop at 
a telegraph office, cabby. We will keep Toby, for 
he may be of use to us yet.” 

We pulled up at the Great Peter Street Post- 
Office, and Holmes despatched his wire. “ Whom 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


87 

do you think that is to ? ” he asked, as we resumed 
our journey. 

‘‘ I am sure I don’t know.” 

“ You remember the Baker Street division of the 
detective police force whom I employed in the 
Jefferson Hope case ? ” 

“Well,” said I, laughing. 

“ This is just the case where they might be in- 
valuable. If they fail, I have other resources ; but 
I shall try them first. That wire was to my dirty 
little lieutenant, Wiggins, and I expect that he and 
his gang will be with us before we have finished our 
breakfast.” 

It was between eight and nine o’clock now, and 1 
was conscious of a strong reaction after the succes- 
sive excitement of the night. I was limp and weary, 
befogged in mind and fatigued in body. I had not 
the professional enthusiasm which carried my com- 
panion on, nor could I look at the matter as a mere 
abstract intellectual problem. As far as the death 
of Bartholomew Sholto went, I had heard little 
good of him, and could feel no intense antipathy to 
his murderer. The treasure, however, was a dif- 
ferent matter. That, or part of it, belonged right- 
fully to Miss Morstan. While there was a chance 
of recovering it, I was ready to devote my life to 
the one object. True, if I found it, it would prob- 
ably put her forever beyond my reach. Yet it 
would be a petty and selfish love which would be 
influenced by such a thought as that. If Holmes 
could work to find the criminals, I had a tenfold 
stronger reason to urge me on to find the treasure. 


88 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


A bath at Baker Street and a complete change 
freshened me up wonderfully. When I came down 
to our room I found the breakfast laid and Holmes 
pouring out the coffee. 

“ Here it is,” said he, laughing, and pointing to an 
open newspaper. “ The energetic Jones and the 
ubiquitous reporter have fixed it up between them. 
But you have had enough of the case. Better have 
your ham and eggs first.” 

I took the paper from him and read the short 
notice, which was headed “ Mysterious Business at 
Upper Norwood.” 

‘‘About twelve o’clock last night,” said the 
Standard, “Mr. Bartholomew Sholto, of Pondi- 
cherry Lodge, Upper Norwood, was found dead in 
his room under circumstances which point to foul 
play. As far as we can learn, no traces of violence 
were found upon Mr. Sholto’s person, but a valuable 
collection of Indian gems, which the deceased gen- 
tleman had inherited from his father, has been car- 
ried off. The discovery was first made by Mr. 
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who had called 
at the house with Mr. Thaddeus Sholto, brother of 
the deceased. By a singular piece of good fortune, 
Mr. Athelney Jones, the well-known member of the 
detective police force, happened to be at the Nor- 
wood Police Station, and was on the ground wdthin 
half an hour of the first alarm. His trained and 
experienced faculties were at once directed toward 
the detection of the criminals, with the gratifying 
result that the brother, Thaddeus Sholto, has 
already been arrested, together with the house- 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


89 


keeper, Mrp.. Bernstone, an Indian butler named La\ 
Rao, and a porter, or gatekeeper, named McMurdo. 
It is quite certain that the thief or thieves were 
well acquainted with the house, for Mr. Jones’s 
well-known technical knowledge and his powers of 
minute observation have enabled him to prove con- 
clusively that the miscreants could not have entered 
by the door or by the window, but must have made 
their way across the roof of the building, and so 
through a trap-door into a room which communi- 
cated with that in which the body was found. This 
fact, which has been very clearly made out, proves 
conclusively that it was no mere haphazard burglary. 
The prompt and energetic action of the officers of 
the law shows the great advantage of the presence 
on such occasions of a single vigorous and master- 
ful mind. We cannot but think that it supplies an 
argument to those who would wish to see our detec- 
tives more decentralized, and so brought into closer 
and more effective touch with the cases which it is 
their duty to investigate.” 

“ Isn’t it gorgeous ! ” said Holmes, grinning over 
his coffee-cup. “ What do you think of it ? ” 

“ I think that we have had a close shave ourselves 
of being arrested for the crime.” 

“ So do I. I wouldn’t answer for our safety now, 
if he should happen to have another of his attacks 
of energy.” 

At this moment there was a loud ring at the 
bell, and I could hear Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, 
raising her voice in a wail of expostulation and 
dismay. 


90 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ By Heaven, Holmes,” I said, half rising, “ 1 
believe they are really after us.” 

“ Ho, it’s not quite so bad as that. It is the un- 
official force — the Baker Street irregulars.” 

As he spoke, there came a swift pattering of 
naked feet upon the stairs, a clatter of high voices, 
and in rushed a dozen dirty and ragged little street 
Arabs. There was some show of discipline among 
them, despite their tumultuous entr^^, for they in- 
stantly drew up in line and stood facing us with 
expectant faces. One of their number, taller and 
older than the others, stood forward with an air of 
lounging superiority which was very funny in such 
a disreputable little scarecroWc 

“ Got your message, sir,” said he, “ and brought 
’em on sharp. Three bob and a tanner for tickets.” 

“ Here you are,” said Holmes, producing some 
silver. “ In future they can report to you, Wiggins, 
and you to me. I cannot have the house invaded 
in this way. However, it is just as well that you 
should all hear the instructions. I want to find the 
whereabouts of a steam launch called the ‘ Aurora,’ 
owner, Mordecai Smith, black with two red streaks, 
funnel black with a white band. She is down the 
river somewhere. I want one boy to be at Mor- 
decai Smith’s landing-st^ge, opposite Millbank, to 
say if the boat comes back. You must divide it out 
among yourselves, and do both banks thoroughly. 
Let me know the moment you have news. Is that 
all clear ? ” 

“ Yes, guv’nor,” said Wiggins. 

The old scale of pay, and a guinea to the boy 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


91 


who finds the boat. Here’s a day in advance. Now 
off you go ! ” He handed them a shilling each, and 
away they buzzed down the stairs, and I saw them 
a moment later streaming down the street. 

If the launch is above water they will find her,” 
said Holmes, as he rose from the table and lighted 
his pipe. “ They can go everywhere, see everything, 
overhear every one. I expect to hear before even- 
ing that they have spotted her. In the meanwhile, 
we can do nothing but await results. We cannot 
pick up the broken trail until we find either the 
‘ Aurora ’ or Mr. Mordecai Smith.” 

“ Toby could eat these scraps, I dare say. Are 
you going to bed. Holmes ? ” 

“ No ; I am not tired. I have a curious constitu- 
tion. I never remember feeling tired by work, 
though idleness exhausts me completely. I am go- 
ing to smoke, and to think over this queer business 
to which my fair client has introduced us. If ever 
man had an easy task, this of ours ought to be. 
Wooden-legged men are not so common, but the 
other man must, I should think, be absolutely 
unique.” 

That other man again ! ” 

“ I have no wish to make a mystery of him— to 
you, anyway. But you must have formed your 
own opinion. Now, do consider the data. Dimin- 
utive foot-marks, toes never fettered by boots, 
naked feet, stone-headed wooden mace, great agility, 
small, poisoned darts. What do you make of all 
this?” 

“A savage!” I exclaimed. ‘‘Perhaps one of 


92 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


those Indians who were the associates of Jonathan 
Small.” 

“ Hardly that,” said he. “ When first I saw sig^ns 
of strange weapons I was inclined to think so, but 
the remarkable character of the foot-marks caused 
me to reconsider my views. Some of the inhabit- 
ants of the Indian Peninsula are small men, but 
none could have left such marks as that. The Hin- 
doo proper has long and thin feet. The sandal, 
wearing Mohammedan has the great toe well sepa- 
rated from the others, because the thong is commonly 
passed between. These little darts, too, could only 
be shot in one way. They were from a blow -pipe. 
How, then, where are we to find our savage ? ” 

“ South America,” I hazarded. 

He stretched his hand up, and took down a bulky 
volume from the shelf. “ This is the first volume 
of a gazeteer which is now being published. It may 
be looked upon as the very latest authority. What 
have we here ? ‘ Andaman Islands, situated three 

hundred and forty miles to the north of Sumatra in 
the Bay of Bengal.’ Hum! hum! What’s all this? 
‘ Moist climate, coral reefs, sharks. Port Blair, con. 
vict-barracks, Kutland Island, cottonwoods — ’ Ah, 
here we are. ‘ The aborigines of the Andaman 
Islands may perhaps claim the distinction of be- 
ing the smallest race upon this earth, though some 
anthropologists prefer the Bushmen of Africa, the 
Digger Indians of America, and the Terra del Fue- 
gians. The average height is rather below four 
feet, although many full-grown adults may be found 
who are very much smaller than this. They are a 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


93 


fierce, morose, and intractable people, though capable 
of forming most devoted friendships when their con- 
fidence has once be^ji gained.’ Mark that, Watson. 
Now, then, listen to this. ‘ They are naturally 
hideous, having large, misshapen heads, small, fierce 
eyes, and distorted features. Their feet and hands, 
however, are remarkably small. So intractable and 
fierce are they that all the efforts of the British 
officials have failed to win them over in any degree. 
They have always been a terror to shipwrecked 
crews, braining the survivors with their stone-headed 
clubs, or shooting them with their poisoned arrows. 
These massacres are invariably concluded by a can- 
nibal feast.’ Nice, amiable people, Watson ! If 
this fellow had been left to his own unaided devices 
this affair might have taken an even more ghastly 
turn. I fancy that, even as it is, Jonathan Small 
would give a good deal not to have employed him.” 

“ But how came he to have so singular a com- 
panion ? ” 

“ Ah, that is more than I can tell. Since, how- 
ever, we had already determined that Small had 
come from the Andamans, it is not so very wonder- 
ful that this islander should be with him. No doubt 
we shall know all about it in time. Look here, 
Watson : you look regularly done. Lie down there 
on the sofa, and see if I can put you to sleep.” 

He took up his violin from the corner, and as 1 
stretched myself out he began to play some low, 
dreamy, melodious air — his own, no doubt, for he 
had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a 
vague remembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest 


94 : 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


face, and the rise and fall of his b6\v. Then I 
seemed to be floating peacefully away upon a soft 
sea of sound, until I found myself in dreamland, 
with the sweet face of Mary Morstan looking down 
upon me. 


THIS SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


95 


CHAPTEE IX. 

A BREAK IN THE CHAIN. 

It was late in the afternoon before I awoke, 
iitrengthened and refreshed. Sherlock Holmes still 
sat exactly as I had left him, save that he had laid 
aside his violin and was deep in a book. He looked 
across at me as 1 stirred, and I noticed that his face 
was dark and troubled. 

‘‘You have slept soundly,” he said. “I feared 
that our talk would wake you.” 

“ I heard nothing,” I answered. “ Have you had 
fresh news, then ? ” 

“Unfortunately, no. I confess that I am sur- 
prised and disappointed. I expected sometfiing def- 
inite by this time. Wiggins has just been up to 
report. He says that no trace can be found of the 
launch. It is a provoking check, for every hour is of 
importance.” 

“ Can I do anything ? I am perfectly fresh now, 
and quite ready for another night’s outing.” 

“No; we can do nothing. We can only wait. 
If we go ourselves, the message might come in our 
absence, and delay be caused. You can do what 
you will, but I must remain on guard.” 

“ Then I shall run over to Camberwell and call 


96 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


apon Mrs. Cecil Forrester. She asked me to yester- 
day.” 

“ On Mrs. Cecil Forrester ? ” asked Holmes, with 
the twinkle of a smile in his eyes. 

“Well, of course, on Miss Morstan, too. They 
were anxious to hear what happened.” 

“I would not tell them too much,” said Holmes. 
“ Women are never to be entirely trusted — not the 
best of them.” 

I did not pause to argue over this atrocious senti- 
ment. “ I shall be back in an hour or two,” I 
remarked. 

“ All right! Good luck! But, I say, if you are 
crossing the river you ma}’^ as well return Tob}^, for 
I don’t think it at all likely that we shall have any 
use for him now.” 

I took our mongrel accordingly, and left him, to- 
gether with a half sovereign, at the old naturalist’s 
in Pinchin Lane. At Camberwell I found Mis? 
Morstan a little weary after her night’s adventures, 
but ver}7^ eager to hear the news. Mrs. Forrester, 
too, was full of curiosity. I told them all that we 
had done, suppressing, how ever, the more dreadful 
parts of the tragedy. Tl us, although I spoke of 
Mr. Sholto’s death, I sale, nothing of the exact 
manner and method of it. With all my omissions, 
however, there was enou^;h to startle and amaze 
them. 

“ It is a romance ! ” cried Mrs. Forrester. “ An 
injured lady, half a million in treasure, a black ca;:^ 
nibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian. They take the 
place of the conventional dragon or wicked earl.” 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 97 

‘‘ And two knight- errants to the rescue,” added 
Miss Morstan, with a bright glance at me. 

“Why, Mary, your fortune depends upon the 
issue of this search. I don’t think that you are 
nearly excited enough. Just imagine what it must 
be to be so rich and to have the world at your feet.” 

It sent a thrill of joy to my heart to notice that 
she showed no sign of elation at the prospect. On 
the contrary, she gave a toss of her proud head, as 
though the matter were one in which she took small 
interest. 

“ It is for Mr. Thaddeus Sholto that I am anxious,” 
she said. “ ITothing else is of any consequence ; but 
I think that he has behaved most kindly and honor- 
ably throughout. It is our duty to clear him of this 
dreadful and unfounded charge.” 

It was evening before I left Camberwell, and 
quite dark by the time I reached home. My com- 
panion’s book and pipe lay by his chair, but he had 
disappeared. I looked about in the hope of seeing 
a note, but there was none. 

“ I suppose that Mr. Sherlock Holmes has gone 
out,” I said to Mrs. Hudson, as she came up to 
lower the blinds. 

“ Ho, sir. He has gone to his room, sir. Do 
you know, sir,” sinking her voice into an impressive 
whisper, “ I am afraid for his health ! ” 

“ Why so, Mrs. Hudson ? ” 

“ Well, he’s that strange, sir. After you was gone 
he walked, and he walked, up and down, and up and 
down, until I was weary of the sound of his footstep. 
Then I heard him talking to himself, and muttering, 

7 


98 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


and every time the bell rang out he came on the stair- 
head, with, ‘ What is that, Mrs. Hudson ? ’ And 
now he has slammed off to his room, but I can hear 
him walking away the same as ever. I hope he’s 
not going to be ill, sir. I ventured to say some- 
thing to him about cooling medicine, but he turned 
on me, sir, with such a look that I don’t know how 
I ever got out of the room.” 

“ I don’t think that you have any cause to be un- 
easy, Mrs. Hudson,” I answered. I have seen him 
like this before. He has some small matter upon 
his mind which makes him restless.” I tried to 
speak lightly to our worthy landlady, but I was my- 
self somewhat uneasy when through the long night 
I still, from time to time, heard the dull sound of 
his tread, and knew how his keen spirit was chafing 
against this involuntary inaction. 

At breakfast-time he looked worn and haggard, 
with a little fleck of feverish color upon either 
cheek. 

“ You are knocking yourself up, old man,” I re- 
marked. “ I heard you marching about in the 
night.” 

“Ho, I could not sleep,” he answered. “This 
infernal problem is consuming me. It is too much 
to be balked by so petty an obstacle, when all else 
had been overcome. I know the men, the launch, 
everything ; and yet I can get no news. I have set 
other agencies at work, and used every means at my 
disposal. The whole river has been searched on 
either side, but there is no news, nor has Mrs. Smith 
heard of her husband. I shall come to the conclu- 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 99 

sion soon that they have scuttled the craft. But 
there are objections to that.” 

“ Or that Mrs. Smith has put us on a wrong scent.” 

‘‘ No, I think that may be dismissed. I had in- 
quiries made, and there is a launch of that descrip- 
tion.” 

“ Could it have gone up the river ? ” 

“ I have considered that possibility, too, and there 
is a search party who will work up as far as Kich- 
mond. If no news comes to-day, I shall start off 
myself to-morrow, and go for the men rather than 
the boat. But surely, surely, we shall hear some- 
thing.” 

We did not, however. Not a word came to us, 
either from Wiggins or from the other agencies. 
There were articles in most of the papers upon the 
Norwood tragedy. They all appeared to be rather 
hostile to the unfortunate Thaddeus Sholto. No 
fresh details were to be found, however, in any of 
them, save that an inquest was to be held upon the 
following day. I walked over to Camberwell in 
the evening to report our ill success to the ladies, 
and on my return I found Holmes dejected and 
somewhat morose. He would hardly reply to my 
questions, and busied himself all evening in an 
abstruse chemical analysis which involved much 
heating of retorts and distilling of vapors, ending at 
last in a smell which fairly drove me out of the 
apartment. Up to the small hours of the morning 
I could hear the clinking of his test-tubes, which 
told me that he was still engaged in his malodorous 
experiment. 


100 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


In the early dawn I woke with a start, and was 
surprised to find him standing by my bedside, clad 
in a rude sailor dress, with a pea-jacket, and a coarse 
red scarf round his neck. 

“ I am off down the river, Watson,” said he. “ I 
have been turning it over in my mind, and I can 
see only one way out of it. It is worth trying, at all 
events.” 

‘‘ Surely I can come with you, then ? ” said I. 

“ No ; you can be much more useful if you will 
remain here as my representative. I am loath to 
go, for it is quite on the cards that some message 
may come during* the day, though Wiggins was de- 
spondent about it last night. I want you to opeft 
all notes and telegrams, and to act on your own 
judgment if any news should come. Can I rely upon 
you ? ” 

“ Most certainly.” 

. “ I am afraid that you will not be able to wire to 
me, for I can hardly tell yet where I may find my- 
self. If I am in luck, however, I may not be gone 
so very long. I shall have news of some sort or 
other before I get back.” 

I heard nothing of him by breakfast- time. On 
opening the Standard^ however, I found that there 
was a fresh allusion to the business. With ref- 
erence to the Upper Norwood tragedy,” it re- 
marked, “ we have reason to believe that the matter 
promises to be even more complex and mysterious 
than was originally supposed. Fresh evidence has 
shown that it is quite impossible that Mr. Thaddeus 
Sholto could have been in any way concerned in 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


101 


the matter. He and the housekeeper, Mrs. Bern- 
stone, were both released yesterday evening. It is 
believed, however, that the police have a clew to 
the real culprits, and that it is being prosecuted by 
Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard, with all 
liis well-known energy and sagacity. Further ar- 
rests may be expected at any moment.’’ 

“ That is satisfactory so far as it goes,” thought 
I. “ Friend Sholto is safe, at any rate. I wonder 
what the fresh clew may be ; though it seems to be 
a stereotyped form Avhenever the police have made 
a blunder.” 

I tossed the paper down upon the table, but at 
that moment my eye caught an advertisement in 
the agony column. It ran in this way ; 

“ Lost. — Whereas, Mordecai Smith, boatman, and 
his son Jim, left Smith’s Wharf at or about three 
o’clock last Tuesday morning, in the steam launch 
‘ Aurora,’ black with two red stripes ; funnel black 
with a white band ; the sum of five pounds will be 
paid to any one who can give information to Mrs. 
Smith, at Smith’s Wharf, or at 222 h Baker Street, 
as to the whereabouts of the said Mordecai Smith 
and the launch ‘ Aurora.’ ” 

This was clearly Holmes’s doing. The Baker 
Street address was enough to prove that. It struck 
me as rather ingenious, because it might be read by 
the fugitives without their seeing in it more than 
the natural anxiety of a wife for her missing hus- 
band. 


102 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


It was a long day. Every time that a knock 
came to the door, or a sharp step passed in the 
street, I imagined that it was either Holmes return- 
ing or an answer to his advertisement. I tried to 
read, but my thoughts would wander off to our 
strange quest and to the ill-assorted and villainous 
pair whom we were pursuing. Could there be, I 
wondered, some radical flaw in my companion’s 
reasoning ? Might he be suffering from some huge 
self-deception ? Was it not possible that his nimble 
and speculative mind had built up this wild theory 
upon faulty premises ^ I had never known him to 
be wrong; and the keenest reasoner may oc* 
casionally be deceived. He was likely, I thought, 
to fall into error through the over-refinement of his 
logic — his preference for a subtle and bizarre ex- 
planation when a plainer and more commonplace 
one lay ready to his hand. Yet, on the other hand, 
I had myself seen the evidence, and I had heard the 
reasons for his deductions. When I looked back on 
the long chain of curious circumstances, many of 
them trivial in themselves, but all bending in the 
same direction, I could not disguise from myself 
that even if Holmes’s explanation were incorrect the 
true theory must be equally outre and startling. 

At three o’clock in the afternoon there was a loud 
peal at the bell, an authoritative voice in the hall, 
and, to my surprise, no less a person than Mr Athel- 
ney Jones was shown up to me. Yery different 
was he, however, from the brusque and masterful 
professor of common-sense who had taken over the 
case so confidently at Upper or wood. His ex 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 103 

l)ression was downcast, and his bearing meek and 
even apologetic. 

“ Good day, sir ; good day,” said he. “ Mr. Sher- 
lock Holmes is out, 1 understand.” 

“Yes; and I cannot be sure when he will be 
back. But perhaps you would care to wait. Take 
that chair and try one of these cigars.” 

“Thank you ; I don’t mind if I do,’’ said he, mop- 
ping his face with a red bandana handkerchief. 

“ And a whisky and soda ? ” 

“ Well, half a glass. It is very hot for the time 
of year and I have a good deal to worry and try 
me. You know my theory about this Norwood 
case ? ” 

“ I remember that you expressed one.” 

“Well, I have been obliged to reconsider it. I 
had my net drawn tightly round Mr. Sholto, sir, 
when pop ! he ^vent through a hole in the middle oi 
it. He was able to prove an alibi which could not 
be shaken. From the time that he left his brother’s 
room he was never out of sight of some one or 
other. So it could not be he who climbed over the 
roofs and through trap-doors. It’s a very dark case 
and my professional credit is at stake. I should be 
very glad of a little assistance.” 

“We all need help sometimes,” said I. 

“ Your friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, is a wonder- 
ful man, sir,” said he, in a husky and confidential 
voice. “ He’s a man who is not to be beat. I have 
known that young man go into a good many cases, 
but I never saw the case yet that he could not throw 
light upon. He is irregular in his methods, and a 


104 


THE SIGN OP THE FO0R. 


little quick, perhaps, in jumping at theories, but, on 
the whole, I think he would have made a most 
promising officer, and I don’t care who knows it. I 
have had a wire from him this morning, by which 
I understand that he has got some clew to this 
Sholto business. Here is his message.” 

He took the telegram out of his pocket, and 
handed it to me. It was dated from Poplar at 
twelve o’clock. “ Go to Baker Street at once,” it 
said. “ If I have not returned, wait for me. I am 
close on the track of the Sholto gang. You can 
come with us to-night if you want to be in at the 
finish.” 

“ This sounds well. He has evidently picked up 
the scent again,” said I. 

“ Ah, then he has been at fault, too,” exclaimed 
Jones, with evident satisfaction. “ Eyefi the best 
of us are thrown off sometimes. Of course this 
may prove to be a false alarm ; but it i^ my duty as 
an officer of the law to allow no chance to slip. 
But there is some one at the door. Perhaps this is 
he.” 

A heavy step was heard ascending the stairs, with 
a great wheezing and rattling as from a man Avho 
was sorely put to it for breath. Once or twice he 
stopped, as though the climb were too much for 
him, but at last he made his way to our door and 
entered. His appearance corresponded to the sounds 
which we had heard. He was an aged man, clad in 
seafaring garb, with an old pea-jacket buttoned up 
to his throat. His back was bowed, his knees were 
shaky, and his breathing was painfully asthmatia 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


105 


As he leaned upon a thick oaken cudgel his shoul- 
ders heaved in the effort to draw the air into his 
lungs. He had a colored scarf round his chin, and 
I could see little of his face save a pair of keen dark 
eyes, overhung by bushy white brows, and long 
gray side-whiskers. Altogether he gave me the im- 
pression of a respectable master mariner who had 
fallen into years and poverty. 

“ What is it, my man ? ” 1 asked. 

He looked about him in the slow, methodical 
fashion of old age. 

“ Is Mr. Sherlock Holmes here?” said he. 

“ Ho ; but I am acting for him. You can tell me 
any message you have for him.” 

“ It was to him himself I was to tell it,” said he. 

“ But I tell you that I am acting for him. Was 
it about Mordecai Smith’s boat ? ” 

“ Yes. I knows well where it is. An’ I knows 
where the men he is after are. An’ I knows where 
the treasure is. I knows all about it.” 

“ Then tell me, and I shall let him know.” 

“ It was to him I was to tell it,” he repeated, with 
the petulant obstinacy of a very old man. 

“Well, you must wait for him.” 

“ Ho, no ; I ain’t goin’ to lose a whole day to 
please no one. If Mr. Holmes ain’t here, then Mr. 
Holmes must find it all out for himself. I don’t care 
about the look of either of you, and I won’t tell a 
word.” 

He shuffled toward the door, but Athelney Jones 
got in front of him. 

“Wait a bit, my friend,” said he. “You have 


106 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


important information, and you must not walk off. 
We shall keep you, whether you like it or not, until 
our friend returns.” 

The old man made a little run toward the door, 
but, as Athelney Jones put his broad back up against 
it, he recognized the uselessness of resistance. 

“ Pretty sort o’ treatment this ! ” he cried, stamp- 
ing his stick. “I come here to see a gentleman, 
and you two, who I never saw in my life, seize me 
and treat me in this fashion ! ” 

“You will be none the worse,” I said. “We 
shall recompense you for the loss of your time. Sit 
over here on the sofa, and you will not have long 
to wait.” 

He came across sullenly enough, an^P^ated him- 
self with his face resting on his hands. Jones and 
I resumed our cigars and our talk. Si^ddenly, how- 
ever, Holmes’s voice broke in upon us. 

“ I think that you might offer me a cigar, too,” 
he said. 

We both started in our chairs. There was 
Holmes sitting close to us with an air of quiet 
amusement. 

“Holmes!” I exclaimed. “You here? But 
where is the old man ? ” 

“ Here is the old man,” said he, holding out a heap 
of white hair. “Here he is — wig, whiskers, eye- 
brows, and all. I thought my disguise was pretty 
good, but I hardly expected that it would stand 
that test.” 

“ Ah, you rogue ! ” cried Jones, highly delighted. 
“ You would have made an actor, and a rare one. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


107 


You had the proper workhouse cough, and those 
weak legs of yours are worth ten pounds a week. I 
thought I knew the glint of your eye, though. You 
didn’t get away from us so easily, you see.” 

“ I have been working in that get-up all day,” 
said he, lighting his cigar. ‘‘ You see, a good many 
of the criminal classes begin to know me — especially 
since our friend here took to publishing some of my 
cases ; so I can only go on the warpath under some 
simple disguise like this. You got my wire ? ” 

“Yes; that was what brought me here.” 

“ How has your case prospered ? ” 

“ It has all come to nothing. I had to release 
two of my prisoners, and there is no evidence against 
the other two.” 

“ Never mind. We shall give you two others in 
place of them. But you must put yourself under 
my orders. You are welcome to all the official 
credit, but you must act on the lines that I point out. 
Is that agreed ? ” 

“ Entirely, if you will help me to the men.” 

“Well, then, in the first place I shall want a fast 
police-boat — a steam launch — to be at the Westmin- 
ster Stairs at seven o’clock.” 

“ That is easily managed. There is always one 
about there ; but I can step across the road and tele- 
phone, to make sure.” 

“ Then I shall want two stanch men, in case of 
resistance.” 

“ There will be two or three in the boat. What 
else?” 

“ When we secure the men we shall get the treas* 


108 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


ure. I think that it would be a pleasure to 
friend here to take the box round to the young lady 
to whom half of it rightfully belongs. Let her be 
the first to open it. Eh, Watson ? ” 

“ It would be a great pleasure to me.” 

“ Kather an irregular proceeding,” said Jones, 
shaking his head. “ However, the whole thing is 
irregular, and I suppose we must wink at it. The 
treasure must afterward be handed over to the 
authorities until after the official investigation.” 

“ Certainly. That is easily managed. One other 
point. I should much like to have the details about 
this matter from the lips of Jonatha^ Small himself 
You know I like to work the detail c^f myi ases out 
There is no objection to my having an unofficial in- 
terview with him, either here in my rooms or else, 
where, as long as he is efficiently guarded ? ” 

“Well, jiou are master of the situation. I have 
had no proof yet of the existence of this Jonathan 
Small. However, if you can catch him I don’t see 
how I can refuse you an interview with him.” 

“ That is understood, then ? ” 

“ Perfectly. Is there anything else ? ” 

“ Only that I insist upon your dining with us. It 
will be ready in half an hour. I have oysters and a 
brace of grouse, with something a little choice in 
white wine. AVatson, you have never yet recog- 
nized my merits as a housekeeper,” 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


109 


CHAPTER X. 

THE END OF THE ISLANDER^ 

Our meal was a merry one. Holmes could talk 
exceedingly well when he chose, and that night he 
did choose. He appeared to be in a state of nervous 
exaltation. I have never known him so brilliant. 
He spoke on a quick succession of subjects— on mir- 
acle-plays, on medieval pottery, on Stradivarius 
violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on the war- 
ships of the future — handling each as though he had 
made a special study of it. His bright humor 
marked the reaction from his black depression of 
the preceding days. Athelney Jones proved to be 
a sociable soul in his hours of relaxation, and faced 
his dinner with the air of a hon vivant. For my- 
self, I felt elated at the thought that we were near- 
ing the end of our task, and I caught something of 
Holmes’s gayety. Hone of us alluded during the 
dinner to the cause which had brought us together. 

When the cloth was cleared. Holmes glanced at 
his watch, and filled up three glasses with port. 
‘‘ One bumper,” said he, “ to the success of our little 
expedition. And now it is high time we were off. 
Have you a pistol, Watson ? ” 

“ I have my old service-revolver in my desk.” 

‘‘ You had best take it, then. It is well to be pre- 


110 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


pared. I see that the cab is at the door. 1 ordered 
it for half-past six.” 

It was a little past seven before we reached the 
Westminster wharf, and found our launch awaiting 
us. Holmes eyed it critically. 

“ Is there anything to mark it as a police-boat ? ” 

“ Yes — that green lamp at the side.” 

“ Then take it off.” 

The small change was made; we stepped on 
board, and the ropes were cast off. J ones. Holmes, 
and I sat in the stern. There wasjme man at the 
rudder, one to tend the engines, andxtwo burly 
police-inspectors forward. \ 

“ Where to ? ” asked Jones. 

“ To the Tower. Tell them to stop opposite to 
Jacobson’s Yard.” 

Our craft was evidently a very fast one. We 
shot past the long lines of loaded barges as though 
they were stationary. Holmes smiled with satis- 
faction as we overhauled a river steamer and left her 
behind us. 

“We ought to be able to catch anything on the 
river,” he said. 

“Well, hardly that. But there are not many 
launches to beat us.” 

“We shall have to catch the ‘Aurora,’ and she 
has a name for being a clipper. I will tell you how 
the land lies, Watson. You recollect how annoyed 
I was at being balked by so small a thing ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Well, I gave my mind a thorough rest by plung- 
ing into a chemical analysis. One of our greatest 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Ill 

statesmen has said that a change of work is the best 
rest. So it is. When I had succeeded in dissolving 
the hydrocarbon which I was at work at, I came 
back to our problem of the Sholtos, and thought 
the whole matter out again. My boys had been up 
the river and down the river Avithout result. The 
launch was not at any landing-stage or wharf, nor 
had it returned. Yet it could hardly have been 
scuttled to hide their traces — though that always 
remained as a possible hypothesis if all else failed. 
I knew that this man Small had a certain degree of 
low cunning, but I did not think him capable of 
anything in the nature of delicate finesse. That is 
usually a product of higher education. I then re- 
flected that since he had certainly been in London 
sometime — as we had evidence that he maintained 
a continual watch over Pondicherry Lodge — he 
could hardly leave at a moment’s notice, but would 
need some little time, if it were only a day, to ar- 
range his affairs. That was the balance of proba- 
bility, at any rate.” 

“ It seemed to me to be a little weak,” said 1. 
“ It is more probable that he had arranged his affairs 
before ever he set out upon his expedition.” 

“ No, I hardly think so. This lair of his would 
be too valuable a retreat in case of need for him to 
give it up until he was sure that he could do Avith- 
out it. But a second consideration struck me : 
Jonathan Small must have felt that the peculiar 
appearance of his companion, hoAvever much he may 
have top-coated him, would give rise to gossip, and 
possibly be associated with this Norwood tragedy. 


112 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


He was quite sharp enough to see that. They had 
started from their headquarters under cover of 
darkness, and he would wish to get back before it 
was broad light. Now it was past three o’clock, 
according to Mrs. Smith, when they got the boat. 
It would be quite bright, and people would be about 
in an hour or so. Therefore, I argued, they did not 
go very far. They paid Smith well to hold his 
tongue, reserved his launch for the final escape, and 
hurried to their lodgings with the treasure-box. In 
a couple of nights, when they had time to see what 
view the papers took, and whether there was any 
suspicion, they would make their way under the 
cover of darkness to some ship at Gravesend or in 
the Downs, where no doubt they had already ar- 
ranged for passages to America or the Colonies.” 

“ But the launch ? They could not have taken 
that to their lodgings.” 

“ Quite so. I argued that the launch must be no 
great way off, in spite of its invisibility. I then put 
myself in the place of Small, and looked at it as a 
man of his capacity would. He would probably 
consider that to send back the launch or to keep it 
at a wharf would make pursuit easy if the police 
did happen to get on his track. How, then, could 
he conceal the launch and yet have her at hand 
when wanted ? I wondered what I should do my- 
self if I were in his shoes. I could only think of 
one way of doing it. I might hand the launch over 
to some boat-builder or repairer, with the directions 
to make a trifling change in her. She would then 
be removed to his shed or yard, and so be effectually 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 113 

concealed, while at the same time I could have her 
at a few hours’ notice.” 

“ That seems simple enough,” 

“ It is just these very simple things which are 
extremely liable to be overlooekd. However, 1 
determined to act on the idea. I started at once 
in this harmless seaman’s rig and inquired at all the 
yards down the river. I drew blank at fifteen, but 
at the sixteenth — Jacobson’s — I learned that the 
* Aurora ’ had been handed over to them two days 
ago by a wooden-legged man, with some trivial 
directions as to her rudder. ‘ There ain’t naught 
amiss with her rudder,’ said the foreman. ‘ There 
she lies, with the red streaks.’ At that moment 
who should come down but Mordecai Smith, the 
missing owner. He was rather the worse for liquor. 
I should not, of course, have known him, but he 
bellowed out his name and the name of his launch. 
‘I want her to-night at eight o’clock,’ said he— 
‘ eight o’clock sharp, mind, for I have two gentlemen 
who won’t be kept waiting.’ They had evidently 
paid him well, for he was very flush of money, chuck- 
ing shillings about to the men. I followed him some 
distance, but he subsided into an ale-house; so I 
went back into the yard, and, happening to pick up 
one of my boys on the way, I stationed him as a 
sentry over the launch. He is to stand at the water’s 
edge and wave his handkerchief to us when they 
start. We shall be lying off in the stream, and it 
will be a strange thing if we do not take men, treas- 
ure, and all.” 

“You have planned it all very neatly, whether 

8 


114 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


they are the right men or not,” said Jones; “ but 
the affair were in my hands, 1 should have had a 
body of police in Jacobson’s Yard, and arrested 
them when they came down.” 

“ Which would have been never. This man Small 
is a pretty shrewd fellow. He would send a scout 
on ahead, and if anything made him suspicious, he 
would lie snug for another week.” 

“ But you might have stuck to Mordecai Smith, 
and so been led to their hiding-place,” said I. 

“ In that case I should have wasted my day. 1 
think that it is a hundred to one against Smith 
knowing where they live. As long as he has liquor 
and good pay, why should he ask questions ? They 
send him messages what to do. Ho, I thought over 
every possible course, and this is the best.” 

While this conversation had been prdceeding, we 
had been shooting the long series of bridges which 
span the Thames. As we passed the city the last 
rays of the sun were gilding the cross upon the 
summit of St. Paul’s. It was twilight before we 
reached the Tower, 

That is Jacobson’s Yard,” said Holmes, pointing 
to a bristle of masts and rigging on the Surrey side. 
“Cruise gently up and down here under cover of 
this string of lighters.” He took a pair of night- 
glasses from his pocket and gazed some time at the 
shore. “ I see my sentry at his post,” he remarked, 
“ but no sign of a handkerchief.” 

“Suppose we go down-stream a short way and 
lie in wait for them,” said Jones, eagerly. We were 
all eager by this time, even the policeman and 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. II5 

stokers, who had a very vague idea of what was 
going forward. 

“We have no right to take anything for granted,” 
Holmes answered. “ It is certainly ten to one that 
they go down-stream, but we cannot be certain. 
From this point we can see the entrance to the yard, 
and they can hardly see us. It will be a clear night 
and plenty of light. We must stay where we are. 
See how the folk swarm over yonder in the gas- 
light.” 

“ They are coming from work in the yard.” 

“ Dirty-looking rascals, but I suppose every one 
has some little immortal spark concealed about him. 
You would not think it, to look at them. There is 
no a priori probability about it. A strange enigma 
is man ! ” 

“ Some one calls him a soul concealed in an ani- 
mal,” I suggested. 

“Win wood Reade is good upon the subject,” said 
Holmes. “ He remarks that, while the individual 
man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he be- 
comes a mathematical certainty. You can, for ex- 
ample, never foretell what any one man will do, 
but you can say with precision what an average 
number will be up to. Individuals vary, but per- 
centages remain constant. So says the statistician. 
But do I see a handkerchief ? Surely there is a 
white flutter over yonder.” 

“ Yes ; it is your boy,” I cried. “ I can see him 
plainly.” 

“ And there is the ‘ Aurora,’ ” exclaimed Holmes, 
“ and going like the devil ! Full speed ahead, en- 


116 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


gineer. Make after that launch with the yellow 
light. By Heaven, I shal' never forgive myself if 
she proves to have the he( 's of us ! ” 

She had slipped unseen t irough the yard entrance, 
and passed behind two or hree small craft, so that 
she had fairly got her spe jd up before we saw her. 
Now she was flying down i:he stream, near in to the 
shore, going at a tremen lous rate. Jones* looked 
gravely at her and shook ] is head. 

“ She is very fast,” he sidd. “ I doubt if we shall 
catch her.” 

“We must catch her! ^ cried Holmes, between 
his teeth. “ Heap it on, stokers ! Make her do 
all she can ! If we burn the boat we must have 
them 1 ” 

We were fairly after ner now. The furnaces 
roared, and the poAverfi'l engines whizzed and 
clanked like a great metallic heart. Her sharp, 
steep prow cut through the still river water, and 
sent two rolling waves to right and to left of us. 
With every throb of the engines she sprung and 
quivered like a living t’dng. One great yellow 
lantern in our bows thre\ ' a long, flickering funnel 
of light in front of us. Right ahead a dark blur 
upon the water showed ’where the “ Aurora ’’ lay, 
and the swirl of white foam behind her spoke of 
the pace at which she was going. We flashed past 
barges, steamers, merchant vessels, in and out, be- 
hind this one and round the other. Voices hailed 
us out of the darkness, but still the “ Aurora ” 
thundered on, and still we followed close upon her 
track. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


nr 

“ Pile it on, men ; pile it on ! ” cried Holmes, 
looking down into the engine-room, while the fierce 
glow from below beat upon his eager, aquiline face. 
“ Get every pound of steam you can.” 

“ I think we gain a little,” said Jones, with his 
eyes on the “ Aurora.” 

‘‘ I am sure of it,” said I. “We shall be up with 
her in a very few minutes.” 

At that moment, however, as our evil fate would 
have it, a tug with three barges in tow blundered 
in between us. It was only by putting our helm 
hard down that we avoided a collision, and before 
we could round them and recover our way the 
“ Aurora ” had gained a good two hundred yards. 
She was still, however, well in view, and the murky, 
uncertain twilight was settling into a clear starlit 
night. Our boilers were strained to their utmost, and 
the frail shell vibrated and creaked with the fierce 
energy which was driving us along. We had shot 
through the Pool, past the West India Docks, down 
the long Deptford Peach, and up again after round- 
ing the Isle of Dogs. The dull blur in front of us 
resolved itself now clearly enough into the dainty 
“Aurora.” Jones turned our search-light upon her, 
so that we could plainly see the figures upon her 
deck. One man sat by the stern, with something 
black between his knees, over which he stooped. 
Peside him lay a dark mass which looked like a 
Kewfoundland dog. The boy held the tiller, while 
against the red glare of the furnace I could see old 
Smith, stripped to the waist, and shoveling coal for 
dear life. They may have had some doubt at first 


118 


THE SIGN OF THE POUR. 


as to whether we were really pursuing them, but 
now, as we followed every winding and turning 
which they took, there could no longer be any ques- 
tion about it. At Greenwich we were about three 
hundred paces behind them. At Blackwall we 
could not have been more than two hundred and 
fifty. I have coursed many creatures in many 
countries during my checkered career, but never 
did sport give me such a wild thrill as this mad, 
fiying man-hunt down the Thames. Steadily we 
drew in upon them yard by yard. In the silence 
of the night we could hear the panting and clank- 
ing of their machinery. The man in the stern still 
crouched upon the deck, and his arms were moving 
as though he were busy, while every now and then 
he would look up and measure with a glance the 
distance which still separated us. Nearer we came 
and nearer. Jones yelled to them to stop. We 
were not more than four boats’ lengths behind 
them, both boats fiying at a tremendous pace. It 
was a clear reach of the river, with Barking Level 
upon one side and the melancholy Plumstead 
Marshes upon the other. At our hail the man in 
the stern sprung up from the deck and shook his 
two clinched fists at us, cursing the while in a high, 
cracked voice. He was a good-sized, powerful man, 
and, as he stood poising himself with legs astride, I 
could see that from the thigh downward there was 
but a wooden stump upon the right side. At the 
sound of his strident, angry cries there was a move- 
ment in the huddled bundle upon the deck. It 
straightened itself into a little black man — the 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


119 


smallest I have ever seen — with a great, misshapen 
head and a shock of tangled, disheveled hair. 
Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I 
whipped out mine at the sight of this savage, dis- 
torted creature. He was wrapped in some sort of 
dark ulster or blanket, which left only his face ex- 
posed ; but that face was enough to give a man a 
sleepless night. Hever have I seen features so 
deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty. His 
small, eyes glowed and burned with a somber light, 
and his thick lips were writhed back from his teeth, 
which grinned and chattered at us with a half- 
animal fury. 

“ Fire if he raises his hand,” said Holmes, quietly. 
We were within a boaUs-length by this time, and 
almost within touch of our quarry. I can see the 
two of them now as they stood, the white man 
with his legs far apart, shrieking out curses, and 
the unhallowed dwarf, with his hideous face, and 
his strong, yellow teeth gnashing at us in the light 
of our lantern. 

It was well that we had so clear a view of him. 
Even as we looked he plucked out from under his 
covering a short, round piece of wood, like a school- 
ruler, and clapped it to his lips. Our pistols rang 
out together. He whirled round, threw up his 
arms, and with a kind of choking cough fell side- 
ways into the stream. I caught one glimpse of his 
venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of 
the waters. At the same moment the wooden-legged 
man threw himself upon the rudder and put it hard 
down, so that his boat made straight in for the 


120 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


southern bank, while we shot past her stern, only 
clearing her by a few feet. We were round after 
her in an instant, but she was already nearly at the 
bank. It was a wild and desolate place, where the 
moon glimmered upon a wide expanse of marsh- 
land with pools of stagnant water and beds of de- 
caying vegetation. The launch with a dull thud 
ran up upon the mud-bank, with her bow in the air 
and her stern flush with the water. The fugitive 
sprung out, but his stump instantly sunk its whole 
length into the sodden soil. In vain he struggled 
and writhed. Not one step could he possibly 
take either forward or backward. He yelled in 
impotent rage, and kicked frantically into the 
mud with his other foot, but his struggles only 
bored his wooden pin the deeper into the sticky 
bank. When we brought our launch alongside he 
was so firmly anchored that it was only by throw- 
ing the end of a rope over his shoulders that we 
were able to haul him out, and to drag him, like some 
evil fish, over our side. The two Smiths, father 
and son, sat sullenly in their launch, but came 
aboard meekly enough when commanded. The 
Aurora ” herself we hauled off and made fast to 
our stern. A solid iron chest of Indian workman- 
ship stood upon the deck. This, there could be no 
question, was the same that had contained the ill- 
omened treasure of the Sholtos. There was no 
key, but it was of considerable weight, so we trans- 
ferred it carefully to our own little cabin. As we 
steamed slowly up-stream again, we flashed our 
search-light in every direction, but there was no 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


121 


sign of the islander. Somewhere in the dark ooze 
at the bottom of the Thames lie the bones of that 
strange visitor to our shores. 

“ See here,” said Holmes, pointing to the wooden 
hatchway. “ We were hardly quick enough, with 
our pistols.” There, sure enough, just behind 
where we had been standing, stuck one of those 
murderous darts which we knew so well. It must 
have whizzed between us at the instant that we 
fired. Holmes smiled at it, and shrugged his shoul- 
ders in his easy fashion, but I confess that it turned 
me sick to think of the horrible death which had 
passed so close to us that night. 


122 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR, 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE GREAT AGRA TREASURE. 

Our captive sat in the cabin opposite the iron 
box which he had done so much and waited so long 
to gain. He was a sunburned, reckless-eyed fellow 
with a network of lines and wrinkles all over his 
mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air 
life. There was a singular prominence about his 
bearded chin which marked a man who was not to 
be easily turned from his purpose. His age may 
have been fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly 
hair was thickly shot with gray. His face, in re- 
pose, was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy 
brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately 
seen, a terrible expression when moved to anger. 
He sat now with his handcuffed hands upon his lap, 
and his head sunk upon his breast, while he look^ 
with his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had 
been the cause of his ill-doings. It seemed to me 
that there was more sorrow than anger in his rigid 
and contained countenance. Once he looked up at 
me with a gleam of something like humor in his 
eyes. 

“ Well, Jonathan Small/’ said Holmes, lighting a 
cigar, “ I am sorry that it has come to this.” 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


123 


‘‘ And so am I, sir,” he answered, frankly. “ I 
don’t believe that I can swing over the job. I give 
you my word on the Book that I never raised hand 
against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound, 
Tonga, who shot one of his cursed darts into him. 
I had no part in it, sir. I was as grieved as if it 
had been my blood relation. I Tvelted the little 
devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it 
was done, and I could not undo it again.” 

“ Have a cigar,” said Holmes ; “ and you had 
better take a pull out of my flask, for you are very 
wet. How could you expect so small and weak a 
man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto 
and hold him while you were climbing the rope ? ” 

“ You seem to know as much about it as if you 
were there, sir. The truth is that I hoped to find 
the room clear. I knew” the habits of the house 
pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholto 
usually went down to his supper. I shall make no 
secret of the business. The best defense that I can 
make is just the simple truth. Now, if it had been 
the old major, I would have swung for him with a 
light heart. I would have thought no more of 
knifing him than of smoking this cigar. But it’s 
cursed hard that I should be lagged over this young 
Sholto, with whom I had no quarrel w”hatever.” 

“You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney 
Jones, of Scotland Yard. He is going to bring you 
up to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a true ac- 
count of the matter. You must make a clean breast 
of it, for if you do I hope that I may be of use to 
you. I think I can prove that the poison acts so 


124 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


quickly that the man was dead before you ever 
reached the room.” 

“ That he was, sir ! I never got such a turn in 
my life as when I saw him grinning at me with his 
head on his shoulder as I climbed through the win- 
dow. It fairly shook me, sir. I’d have half killed 
Tonga for it, if he had not scrambled off. Th&b 
was how he came to leave his club, and some of his 
darts, too, as he tells me, which, I dare say, helped 
to put you on our track ; though how you kept on 
it is more than I can tell. I don’t feel no maliea 
against you for it. But it does seem a queer thing, '’ 
he added, with a bitter smile, “ that I, who have a 
fair claim to nigh upon half a million of money, 
should spend the first half of my life building a 
break- water in the Andamans, and am likely to 
spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor. 
It was an evil day for me when first I clapped eyes 
upon the merchant Achmet, and had to do with the 
Agra treasure, which never brought anything but a 
curse yet upon the man who owned it. To him it 
brought murder ; to Major Sholto it brought fear 
and guilt ; to me it has meant slavery for life.” 

At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad 
face and heavy shoulders into the tiny cabin. 
“ Quite a family party,” he remarked. “ I think I 
shall have a pull at that flask. Holmes. Well, I 
think we may all congratulate each other. Pity we 
didn’t take the other alive ; but there was no choice. 
I say, Holmes, you must confess that you cut it 
rather fine. It was all we could do to overhaul 
her.” 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


125 


“ All is well that ends well,” said Holmes. “ But 
X certainly did not know that the ‘ Aurora ’ was 
such a clipper.” 

“ Smith says she is one of the fastest launches on 
the river, and that if he had had another man to 
help him with the engines we should never have 
caught her. He swears he knew nothing of this 
Horward business.” 

“ Neither he did,” cried our prisoner ; “ not a 
word. I chose his launch, because I heard that she 
was a flyer. W e told him nothing, but we paid him 
well, and he was to get something handsome if we 
reached our vessel, the ‘ Esmeralda,’ at Gravesend, 
outward bound for the Brazils.” 

“ Well, if he has done no wrong, we shall see that 
no wrong comes to him. If we are pretty quick in 
catching our men, we are not so quick in condemn- 
ing them.” It was amusing to notice how the con- 
sequential Jones was already beginning to give him- 
self airs on the strength of the capture. From the 
slight smile which pla^^ed over Sherlock Holmes’s 
face, I could see that the speech had not been lost 
upon him. 

“We will be at Yauxhall Bridge presently,” said 
Jones, “and shall land you. Doctor Watson, with 
the treasure-box. I need hardly tell you that I am 
taking a very grave responsibility upon myself in 
doing this. It is most irregular; but, of course, an 
agreement is an agreement. I must, however, as a 
matter of duty, send an inspector with you, since 
you have so valuable a charge. You will drive, no 
doubt ? ” 


:26 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ Yes, I shall drive.” 

“ It is a pity there is no key, that we may make 
an inventory first. You will have to break it open. 
Where is the key, my man ? ” 

“ At the bottom of the river,” said Small, shortly. 

“ Hum ! There was no use your giving this un* 
necessary trouble. We have had work enough al- 
ready through you. However, doctor, I need not 
warn you to be careful. Bring the box back with 
you to the Baker Street rooms. You will find us 
there, on our way to the station.” 

They landed me at Yauxhall, with my heavy iron 
box, and with a bluff, genial inspector as my com- 
panion. A quarter of an hour’s drive brought us to 
Mrs. Cecil Forrester’s. The servant seemed surprised 
at so late a visitor. Mrs. Cecil Forrester was out 
for the evening, she explained, and likely to be very 
late. Miss Morstan, however, was in the drawing- 
room ; so to the drawing-room I went, box in hand, 
leaving the obliging inspector in the cab. 

She was seated by the open window, dressed in 
some sort of white, diaphanous material, with a little 
touch of scarlet in the neck and waist. The soft 
light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she leaned 
back in the basket-chair, playing over her sweet, 
grave face, and tinting with a dull, metallic sparkle 
the rich coils of her luxuriant hair ; one white arm 
and hand drooped over the side of the chair, and 
her whole pose and figure spoke of an absorbing 
melancholy. At the sound of my footfall she sprung 
CO her feet, however, and a bright fiush of surprise 
and of pleasure colored her pale checks. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 12? 

“ I heard a cab drive up,” she said. “ I thought 
that Mrs. Forrester had come back very early, but 
I never dreamed that it might be you. What news 
have 3 ^ou brought me ? ” 

“ I have brought something better than news,” 
said I, putting down the box upon the table, and 
speaking jovially and boisterously, though my heart 
was heavy within me. “ 1 have brought you some- 
thing which is worth all the news in the world. I 
have brought you a fortune.” 

She glanced at the iron box. “ Is that the treas- 
ure, then ? ” she asked, coolly enough. 

“ Yes, this is the great Agra treasure. Half of it 
is yours and half is Thaddeus Sholto’s. You will 
have a couple of hundred thousand each. Think of 
that ! An annuity of ten thousand pounds. There 
will be few richer young ladies in England. Is it 
not glorious ? ” 

I think that I must have been rather overacting 
my delight, and that she detected a hollow ring in 
my congratulations, for I saw her eyebrows rise a 
little, and she glanced at me curiously. 

“ If I have it,” said she, “ I owe it to you.” 

“ Ho, no,” I answered ; “ not to me, but to my 
friend Sherlock Holmes. With all the will in the 
world, I could never have followed up a clew which 
has taxed even his analytical genius. As it was, 
we very nearly lost it at the last moment.” 

‘‘ Pray sit down and tell me all about it. Doctor 
Watson,” said she. 

I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had 
seen her last — Holmes’s new method of search, the 


128 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


discovery of the “ Aurora,” the appearance of Athel* 
ney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and the 
wild chase down the Thames. She listened, with 
parted lips and shining eyes, to my recital of our 
adventures. When I spoke of the dart which had 
so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that I 
feared she was about to faint. 

“ It is nothing,” she said, as I hastened to pour her 
out some water. “ I am all right again. It was a 
shock to me to hear that I had placed my friends 
in such horrible peril.” 

“ That is all over,” I answered. “ It was nothing. 
1 will tell you no more gloomy details. Let us 
turn to something brighter. There is the treasure. 
What could be brighter than that ? I got leave to 
bring it with me, thinking that it would interest you 
to be the first to see it.” 

“ It would be of the greatest interest to me,” she 
said. There was no eagerness in her voice, however. 
It struck her, doubtless, that it might seem ungracious 
upon her part to be indifferent to a prize which had 
cost so much to win. 

“ What a pretty box ! ” she said, stooping over it. 

This is Indian work, I suppose ? ” 

“ Yes ; it is Benares metal-work.” 

“ And so heavy ! ” she exclaimed, trying to raise 
it. “ The box alone must l3e of some value. Where 
is the key ? ” 

“ Small threw it into the Thames,” I answered. 
“ I must borrow Mrs. Fo rrester’s poker.” There 
was, in the front, a thick i.nd broad hasp, wrought 
in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


129 


thrust the end of the poker and twi-sted it outward 
as a lever. The hasp sprung open with a loud snap. 
With trembling fingers I flung back the lid. We 
both stood gazing in astonishment. The box was 
empty ! 

No wonder that it was heavy. The iron- work 
was two-thirds of an inch thick all round. It was 
massive, well made, and solid, like a chest constructed 
to carry things of great price, but not one shred or 
crumb of metal or jewelry lay within it. It was 
absolutely and completely empty. 

“ The treasure is lost,” said Miss Morstan, calmly. 

As I listened to the words and realized what they 
meant, a great shadow seemed to pass from my 
soul. I did not know how this Agra treasure had 
weighed me down until now that it was finally re- 
moved. It was selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, 
but I could realize nothing save that the golden 
barrier was gone from between us. 

“ Thank God ! ” I ejaculated from my very heart. 

She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. 

Why do you say that ? ” she asked. 

“ Because you are within my reach again,” I said, 
taking her hand. She did not withdraw it. “ Be- 
cause I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a man loved 
a woman. Because this treasure, these riches, sealed 
my lips. Now that they are gone, I can tell you 
how I love you. That is why I said, ‘ Thank God.’ ” 

‘‘ Then I say, ‘ Thank God,’ too,” she whispered, 
as I drew her to my side. Whoever had lost a 
treasure, I knew that night that I had gained one. 

9 


m 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE STRANGE STORY OF JONATHAN SMALL. 

Avery patient man was the inspector in the cab, for 
it was a weary time before I rejoined him. His face 
clouded over when I showed him the empty box. 

“ There goes the reward ! ” said he, gloomily. 
‘‘ Where there is no money there is no pay. This 
night’s work would have been worth a tenner each 
to Sam Brown and me, if the treasure had been 
there.” 

“Mr. Thaddeus Sholto is a rich man,” I said. 
“ He will see that you are rewarded, treasure or no 
treasure.” 

The inspector shook his head despondently, how- 
ever. “ It’s a bad job,” he repeated ; “ and so Mr. 
Athelney Jones will think.” 

His forecast proved to be correct, for the detective 
looked blank enough when I got to Baker Street 
and showed him the empty box. They had only 
just arrived, Holmes, the prisoner, and he, for they 
had changed their plans so far as to report them- 
selves at a station upon the way. My companion 
lounged in his armchair with his usual listless ex. 
pression, while Small sat stolidly opposite to him 
with his wooden leg cocked over his sound one. As 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 131 

I exhibited the empty box he leaned back in his 
chair and laughed aloud. 

“ This is your doing, Small,” said Athelney Jones, 
angrily. 

“ Tes, I have put it away where you shall never 
lay hand upon it,” he cried, exultantly. “ It is my 
treasure; and if I can’t have the loot I’ll take 
darned good care that no one else does. I tell you 
that no living man has any right to it, unless it is 
three men who are in the Andaman convict-barracks 
and myself. I know now that I cannot have the 
use of it, and I know that they cannot. I have 
acted all through for them as much as for myself. 
It’s been the sign of four with us always. Well I 
know that they would have had me do just what I 
have done, and throw the treasure into the Thames 
rather than let it go to kith or kin of Sholto or of 
Morstan. It was not to make them rich that we did 
for Achmet. You’ll find the treasure where the 
key is, and where little Tonga is. When I saw that 
your launch must catch us, I put the loot in a safe 
place. There are no rupees for you this journey.” 

“ You are deceiving us. Small,” said Athelney 
Jones, sternly. “ If you had wished to throw the 
treasure into the Thames, it would have been easier 
for you to have thrown box and all.” 

“ Easier for me to throw, and easier for you to 
recover,” he answered, with a shrewd, sidelong look. 
“ The man that was clever enough to hunt me down 
is clever enough to pick an iron box from the bottom 
of a river. 'Now that they are scattered over five 
miles or so, it may be a harder job. It went to my 


132 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


heart to do it, though. 1 was half mad when you 
came up with us. However, there’s no good griev- 
ing over it. I’ve had ups in my life, and I’ve had 
downs, but I’ve learned not to cry over spilled 
milk.” 

“ This is a very serious matter, Small,” said the 
detective. ‘‘ If you had helped justice, instead of 
thwarting it in this way^ you would have had a 
better chance at your trial.” 

“Justice?” snarled the ex-convict. “A pretty 
justice ! Whose loot is this, if it is not ours ? 
Where is the justice that I should give it up to those 
who had never earned it ? Look how I have earned 
it. Twenty long years in that fever-ridden swamp, 
all day at work under the mangrove tree, all night 
chained up in the filthy convict-huts, bitten by mos- 
quitoes, racked with ague, bullied by every cursed 
black-faced policeman who loved to take it out of 
a white man. That was how I earned the Agra 
treasure ; and you talk to me of justice because I 
cannot bear to feel that I have paid this price only 
that another may enjoy it ! I would rather swing 
a score of times, or have one of Tonga’s darts in my 
hide, than live in a convict’s cell and feel that an- 
other man is at his ease in a palace with the money 
that should be mine ! ” Small had dropped his 
mask of stoicism, and all this came out in a wild 
whirl of words, while his eyes blazed, and the hand- 
cuffs clanked together with the impassioned move- 
ment of his hands. I could understand, as I saw 
the fury and the passion of the man, that it was no 
groundless or unnatural terror which had possessed 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 133 

Major Suolto when he first learned that the injured 
convict was upon his track. 

“ You forget that we know nothing of all this,’^ 
said Holmes, quietly. ‘‘We have not heard your 
story, and we cannot tell how far justice may 
originally have been on your side.” 

“ Well, sir, you have been very fair-spoken to me, 
though I can see that I have you to thank that I 
have these bracelets upon my wrists. Still, I bear 
no grudge for that. It is all fair and above-board. 
If you want to hear my story, I have no wish to 
hold it back. What I say to you is God’s truth, 
every word of it. Thank you; you can put the 
glass beside me here, and I’ll put my lips to it if 1 
am dry. 

“ I am a Worcestershire man myself — born near 
Pershore. I dare say you would find a heap of 
Smalls living there now if you were to look. I have 
often thought of taking a look round there, but the 
truth is that I was never much of a credit to the 
family, and I doubt if they would be so very glad 
to see me. They were all steady, chapel-going folk, 
small farmers, well known and respected over the 
country-side, while I was always a bit of a rover. 
At last, however, when I was about eighteen, I gave 
them no more trouble, for I got into a mess over a 
girl, and could only get out of it by taking the 
queen’s shilling and joining the Third Buffs, which 
was just starting for India. 

“ I wasn’t destined to do much soldiering, how- 
ever. I had just got past the goose-step, and learned 
to handle my musket, when I was fool enough to 


134 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


go swimming in the Ganges. Luckily for me, my 
company sergeant, John Holder, was in the water 
at the same time, and he was one of the finest swim- 
mers in the service. A crocodile took me, just as 
I was half-way across, and nipped off my right legp 
as clean as a surgeon could have done it, just above 
the knee. What with the shock and loss of blood, 
I fainted, and should have been drowned if Holder 
had not caught hold of me and paddled for the bank. 
I was five months in hospital over it, and when at 
last I was able to limp out of it, with this timber 
toe strapped to my stump, I found myself invalided 
out of the army and unfitted for any active occupa- 
tion. 

“ I was, as you can imagine, pretty down on my 
luck at this time, for I was a useless cripple, though 
not yet in my twentieth year. However, my mis- 
fortune soon proved to be a blessing in disguise. A 
man named Abel white, who had come out there as 
an indigo-planter, wanted an overseer to look after 
his coolies and keep them up to their work. He 
happened to be a friend of our colonel’s, who had 
taken an interest in me since the accident. To 
make a long story short, the colonel recommended 
me strongly for the post, and, as the work was 
mostly to be done on horseback, my leg was no 
great obstacle, for I had enough knee left to keep a 
good grip on the saddle. What I had to do was to 
ride over the plantation, to keep an eye on the men 
as they worked, and to report the idlers. The pay 
was fair, I had comfortable quarters, and altogether 
I was content to spend the remainder of my life in 


THE SIGN OE THE FOUR. 


185 


indigo-planting. Mr. Abelwhite was a kind man, 
and he would often drop into my little shanty and 
smoke a pipe with me, for white folk out there feel 
their hearts warm to each other as they never do 
here at home. 

‘‘Well, I was never in luck’s way long. Sud- 
denly, without a note of warning, the great mutiny 
broke upon us. One month India lay as still and 
peaceful, to all appearance, as Surrey or Kent ; the 
next there were two hundred thousand black devils 
let loose, and the country was a perfect hell. Of 
course, you know all about it, gentlemen, a deal 
more than I do, very like, since reading is not in 
my line. I only know what I saw with my own 
eyes. Our plantation was at a place called Muttra, 
near the border of the Northwest Provinces. Night 
after night the whole sky was alight with the burn- 
ing bungalows, and day after day we had small 
companies of Europeans passing through our estate, 
with their wives and children, on their way to Agra, 
where were the nearest troops. Mr. Abelwhite was 
an obstinate man. He bad it in his head that the 
affair had been exaggerated, and that it would blow 
over as suddenly as it had sprung up. There he sat 
on hii veranda, drinking whisky-pegs and smoking 
cheroots, while the country was in a blaze about 
him. Of course we stuck by him, I and Dawson, 
who, with his wife, used to do the bookwork and 
the managing. Well, one fine day the crash came. 
I had been away on a distant plantation, and was 
riding slowly home in the evening, when my eye 
fell upon something all huddled together at the bot' 


m 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


tom of a steep nullah. I rode down to see what it 
was, and the cold struck through my heart when I 
found it was Dawson’s wife, all cut into ribbons, 
and half-eaten by jackals and native dogs. A little 
further up the road Dawson himself was lying on 
his face, quite dead, with an empty revolver in his 
hand, and four Sepoys lying across one another in 
front of him. I reined up my horse, wondering 
which way I should turn, but at that moment I saw 
thick smoke curling up from Abel white’s bungalow 
and the flames beginning to burst through the roof. 
I knew then that I could do my employer no good, 
but would only throw my own life away if 1 med- 
dled in the matter. From where I stood I could see 
hundreds of the black flends, with their red coats 
still on their backs, dancing and howling round the 
burning house. Some of them pointed at me, and a 
couple of bullets sung past my head ; so I broke 
away across the paddy-fields, and found myself late 
at night safe within the walls at Agra. 

“ As it proved, however, there was no great safety 
there, either. The whole country was up like a 
swarm of bees. Wherever the English could collect 
in little bands they held just the ground that their 
guns commanded. Everywhere else they were help- 
less fugitives. It was a fight of the millions against 
the hundreds ; and the cruelest part of it was that 
these men that we fought against, foot, horse, and 
gunners, were our own picked troops, whom we had 
taught and trained, handling our own weapons, and 
blowing our own bugle-calls. At Agra there were 
the Third Bengal Fusiliers, some Sikhs, two troops 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


137 


of horse, and a battery of artillery. A volunteer 
corps of clerks and merchants had been formed, and 
this I joined, wooden leg and all. We went out to 
meet the rebels at Shahgunge early in July, and we 
beat them back for a time, but our powder gave 
out, and we had to fall back upon the city. Noth- 
ing but the worst news came to us from every side 
— which is not to be wondered at, for if you look 
at the map you will see that we were right in the 
heart of it. Lucknow is rather better than a hun- 
dred miles to the east, and Cawnpore about as far 
to the south. From every point on the compass 
there was nothing but torture, and murder, and 
outrage. 

“ The city of Agra is a great place, swarming 
with fanatics and fierce devil-worshipers of all sorts. 
Our handful of men were lost among the narrow, 
winding streets. Our leader moved across the river, 
therefore, and took up his position in the old fort 
of Agra. I don’t know if any of you gentlemen 
have ever read or heard anything of that old fort. 
It is a very queer place — the queerest that ever I 
was in, and I have been in some rum corners, too. 
First of all, it is enormous in size. I should think 
that the inclosure must be acres and acres. There 
is a modern part, which took all our garrison, 
women, children, stores, and everything else, wdth 
plenty of room over. But the modern part is noth- 
ing like the size of the old quarter, where nobody 
goes, and which is given over to the scorpions and 
the centipedes. It is all full of great, deserted 
halls, and winding passages, and long corridors 


138 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


twisting in and out, so that it is easy enough fol 
folks to get lost in it. For this reason it was sel- 
dom that any one went into it, though now and 
again a party with torches might go exploring. 

“ The river washes along the front of the old fort, 
and so protects it, but on the sides and behind there 
are many doors, and these had to be guarded, of 
course, in the old quarter as well as in that which 
was actually held by our troops. We were short- 
handed, with hardly men enough to man the angles 
of the building and to serve the guns. It was im- 
possible for us, therefore, to station a strong guard 
at every one of the innumerable gates. What we 
did was to organize a central guard-house in the 
middle of the fort, and to leave each gate under the 
charge of one white man and two or three natives. 
I was selected to take charge during certain hours 
of the night of a small, isolated door upon the 
southwest side of the building. Two Sikh troopers 
were placed under my command, and I was in- 
structed if anything went wrong to lire my musket 
when I might rely upon help coming at once from 
the central guard. As the guard was a good two 
hundred paces, away, however, and as the space be- 
tween was cut up into a labyrinth of passages and 
corridors, I had great doubts as to whether they 
could arrive in time to be of any use in case of an 
actual attack. 

“Well, I was pretty proud at having this small 
command given me, since I was a raw recruit, and a 
game-legged one at that. For two nights I kept the 
watch with my Punjaubees. They were tall, fierce- 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


139 


i)oking chaps, Mohammed Singh and Abdullah 
Khan by name, both old fighting-men who had borne 
arms against us at Chilianwallah. They could 
talk English pretty well, but I could get little out 
of them. They preferred to stand together and 
jabber all night in their queer Sikh lingo. For my- 
self, I used to stand outside the gate-way, looking 
down on the broad, winding river and on the twink- 
ling lights of the great city. The beating of drums, 
the rattle of tomtoms, and the yells and howls of 
the rebels, drunk with opium and with bang, were 
enough to remind us all night of our dangerous 
neighbors across the stream. Every two hours 
the officers of the night used to come round to all 
the posts, to make sure that all was well. 

“ The third night of my watch was dark and 
dirty, with a small, driving rain. It was dreary 
work standing in the gate-way hour after hour in 
such weather. I tried again and again to make my 
Sikhs talk, but without much success. At two in 
the morning the rounds passed, and broke for a 
moment the weariness of the night. Finding that 
my companions would not be led into conversation, 
I took out my pipe, and laid down my musket to 
strike a match. In an instant the two Sikhs were 
upon me. One of them snatched my fire-lock up 
and leveled it at my head, while the other held a 
great knife to my throat, and swore between his 
teeth that he would plunge it into me if I moved 
a step. 

“ My first thought was that these fellows were in 
league with the rebels, and that this was the 


140 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


beginning of an assault. If our door were in the 
hands of the Sepoys the place must fall, and the 
women and children be treated as they were in 
Cawnpore. Maybe you gentlemen think that I am 
just making out a case for myself, but I give you my 
word that when I thought of that, though 1 felt the 
point of the knife at my throat, I opened my mout.h 
with the intention of giving a scream, if it was m y 
last one, which might alarm the main guard. Tho 
man who held me seemed to know my thoughts ; for, 
even as I braced myself to it, he whispered, ‘ Don’t 
make a noise. The fort is safe enough. There are 
no rebel dogs on this side of the river.’ There was 
the ring of truth in what he said, and I knew that 
if I raised my voice I was a dead man. I could read 
it in the fellow’s brown eyes. I waited, therefore, 
in silence, to see what it was they wanted from me. 

“ ‘ Listen to me, sahib,’ said the taller and fiercer 
of the pair, the one whom they called Abdullah 
Khan. ‘ You must either be with us now or you 
must be silenced forever. The thing is too great a 
one for us to hesitate. Either you are heart and 
soul with us, on your oath on the cross of the 
Christians, or your body this night shall be thrown 
into the ditch, and we shall pass over to our brothers 
in the rebel army. There is no middle way. Which 
is it to be, death or life? We can only give you 
three minutes to decide, for the time is passing, and 
all must be done before the rounds come again.’ 

“‘How can I decide?’ said 1. 'You have not 
told me what you what of me. But I tell you now, 
that if it is anything against the safety of the fort, I 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


141 


rill have no truck with it ; so you can drive home 
your knife, and welcome.’ 

“ ‘ It is nothing against the fort,’ said he. ‘We 
only ask you to do that which your countrymen 
come to this land for. We ask you to be rich. If 
you will be one of us this night, we will swear to 
you upon the naked knife, and by the threefold oath 
which no Sikh was ever known to break, that you 
shall have your fair share of the loot. A quarter of 
the treasure shall be yours. We can say no fairer.’ 

“ ‘ But what is the treasure, then ? ’ I asked. ‘ I 
am as ready to be rich as you can be, if you will but 
show me how it can be done.’ 

“ ‘You swear, then,’ said he, ‘ by the bones of your 
father, by the honor of your mother, by the cross 
of your faith, to raise no hand and speak no word 
against us, either now or afterward ? ’ 

“ ‘ I will swear it,’ I answered, ‘ provided that the 
fort is not endangered.’ 

“ ‘ Then my comrades and I will swear that you 
shall have a quarter of the treasure, which shall be 
equally divided among the four of us.’ 

“ ‘ There are but three,’ said I. 

“‘No; Dost Akbar must have his share. We 
can tell the tale to you while we await them. Do 
you stand at the gate, Mohammed Singh, and give 
notice of their coming. The thing stands thus, 
sahib, and I tell it to you because I know that an 
oath is binding .upon a Feringhee, and that we may 
trust you. Had you been a lying Hindoo, though 
you had sworn by all the gods in their false temples, 
your blood would have been upon the knife and 


142 the sign of the four, 

your body in the water. But the Sikh knd^vs the 
Englishman, 'and the Englishman knows the, Sikh. 
Hearken, then, Ho what I have to say. 

“ ‘ There is a rajah in the northern provinces who 
has much wealth, though his lands are small. Much 
has come to him from his father, and more still he 
has set by himself, for he is of a low nature and 
hoards his gold rather than spends it. When the 
troubles broke out he would be friends both with 
the lion and the tiger — with the Sepoy and with the 
Company’s Kaj. Soon, however, it seemed to him 
that the white men’s day was come, for through all 
the land he could hear of nothing but of their death 
and their overthrow. Yet, being a careful man, he 
made such plans that, come what might, half at 
least of his treasure should be left to him. That 
which was in gold and silver he kept by him in the 
vaults of his palace, but the most precious stones 
and the choicest pearls that he had he put in an 
iron box, and sent it by a trusty servant who, under 
the guise of a merchant, should take it to the fort 
at Agra, there to lie until the land is at peace. Thus, 
if the rebels won he would have his money, but if 
the Company conquer, his jewels would be saved 
to him. Having thus divided his hoard, he threw 
himself into the cause of the Sepoys, since they 
were strong upon his borders. By his doing this, 
mark you sahib, his property becomes the due of 
those who have been true to their salt. 

“ ‘ This pretended merchant, who travels under 
the name of Achmet, is now in the city of Agra, 
and desires to gain his way into the fort. He has 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


143 


with him, as traveling companion, my foster-brother, 
Dost Akbar, who knows his secret. Dost Akbar 
has promised this night to lead him to a side-postern 
of the fort, and has chosen this one for his purpose. 
Here he will come presently, and here he will find 
Mohammed Singh and myself awaiting him. The 
place is lonely, and none shall know of his coming. 
The world shall know of the merchant Achmet 
no more, but the great treasure of the rajah 
shall be divided among us. What say you to it, 
sahib ? ’ 

“In Worcestershire the life of a man seems a 
great and a sacred thing ; but it is very different 
when there is fire and blood all round you and you 
have been used to meeting death at every turn. 
Whether Achmet the merchant lived or died was a 
thing as light as air to me, but at the talk about the 
treasure my heart turned to it, and I thought of 
what I might do in the old country with it, and 
how my folk would stare when they saw their ne’er- 
do-weel coming back with his pockets full of gold 
moidores. I had, therefore, already made up ray 
mind. Abdullah Khan, however, thinking that I 
hesitated, pressed the matter more closely. 

“ ‘ Consider, sahib,’ said he, ‘ that if this man is 
taken by the commandant he will be hung or shot, 
and his jewels taken by the government, so that no 
man will be a rupee the better for them. Kow, 
since we do the taking of him, why should we not 
do the rest as well? The jewels will be as well 
with us as in the Company’s coffers. There will be 
enough to make every one of us rich men and great 


lU 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


chiefs. No one can know about the matter, for 
here we are cut off from all men. What could be 
better for the purpose? Say again, then, sahib, 
whether you are with us, or if we must look upon 
you as an enemy.’ 

“ ‘ I am with you, heart and soul,’ said I. 

“ ‘ It is well,’ he answered, handing me back my 
firelock. ‘ You see that we trust you, for your 
word, like ours, is not to be broken. We have now 
only to wait for my brother and the merchant.’ 

“ ‘ Does your brother know, then, of what you 
will do ? ’ I asked. 

“ ‘ The plan is his. He has devised it. We will 
go to the gate and share the watch with Mohammed 
Singh.’ 

“ The rain was still falling steadily, for it was just 
the beginning of the wet season. Brown, heavy 
clouds were drifting across the sky, and it was hard 
to see more than a stone-cast. A deep moat lay in 
front of our door, but the water was in places nearly 
dried up, and it could easily be crossed. It was 
strange to me to be standing there with those two 
wild Punjaubees waiting for the man who was 
coming to his death. 

“ Suddenly my eye caught the glint of a shaded 
lantern at the other side of the moat. It vanished 
among the mound-heaps, and then appeared again 
coming slowly in our direction. 

“ ‘ Here they are ! ’ I exclaimed. 

“ ‘ You will challenge him, sahib, as usual,’ whis- 
pered Abdullah. ‘ Give him no cause for fear. 
Send us in with him, and we shall do the rest while 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


145 


you stay here on guard. Have the lantern ready 
to uncover, that he may be sure that it is indeed 
the man.’ 

“ The light had flickered onward, now stopping 
and now advancing, until I could see two dark 
figures upon the other side of the moat. I let them 
scramble down the sloping bank, splash through 
the mire, and climb half-way up to the gate, before 
I challenged them. 

“ ‘ Who goes there ? ’ said I, in a subdued voice. 

“ ‘ Friends,’ came the answer. I uncovered my 
lantern and threw a flood of light upon them. The 
first was an enormous Sikh, with a black beard 
which swept nearly down to his cummerbund. Out- 
side of a show I have never seen so tall a man. The 
other was a little, fat, round fellow, with a great 
yellow turban, and a bundle in his hand, done up in 
a shawl. He seemed to be all in a quiver with fear, 
for his hands twitched as if he had the ague, and 
his head kept turning to left and right with two 
bright little twinkling eyes, like a mouse when he 
ventures out from his hole. It gave me the chills 
to think of killing him, but I thought of the treasure, 
and my heart set as hard as a flint within me. 
When he saw my white face he gave a little chirrup 
of joy and came running up toward me. 

“ ‘ Your protection, sahib,’ he panted ; ‘ your pro- 
tection for the unhappy merchant Achmet. I have 
traveled across Rajpootna that I might seek the 
shelter of the fort at Agra. I have been robbed, 
and beaten, and abused because I have been the 
friend of the Company. ^ It is a blessed night this 
10 


146 


THE SIGN OP THE POUR. 


when I am once more in safety — I and my pool 
possessions.’ 

“ ‘ What have you in the bundle ? ’ I asked. 

“ ‘ An iron box,’ he answered, ‘ which contains 
one or two little family matters which are of no 
value to others, but which I should be sorry to lose. 
Yet I am not a beggar ; and I shall reward you, 
young sahib, and your governor also, if he will give 
me the shelter I ask.’ 

“ I could not trust myself to speak longer with 
the man. The more I looked at his fat, frightened 
face, the harder did it seem that we should slay him 
in cold blood. It was best to get it over. 

“ ‘ Take him to the main guard,’ said I. The two 
Sikhs closed in upon him on each side, and the giant 
walked behind, while they marched in through the 
dark gate-way. Never was a man so compassed 
round with death. I remained at the gate- way with 
the lantern. 

I could hear the measured tramp of their foot- 
steps sounding through the lonely corridors. Sud- 
denly it ceased, and I heard voices, and a scuffle, 
with the sound of blows. A moment later there 
came, to my horror, a rush of footsteps coming in 
my direction, with the loud breathing of a running 
man. I turned my lantern down the long, straight 
passage, and there was the fat man, running like 
the wind, with a smear of blood across his face, and 
close at his heels, bounding like a tiger, the great, 
black-bearded Sikh, -with a knife flashing in his 
hand. I have never seen a man run so fast as that 
little merchant. He was gaining on the Sikh, and 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


147 


I could see that if he once passed me and got to the 
open air, he would save himself yet. My heart 
softened to him, but again the thought of his treas- 
ure turned me hard and bitter. I cast my fire-lock 
between his legs as he raced past, and he rolled 
twice over like a shot rabbit. Ere he could stagger 
to his feet the Sikh was upon him, and buried his 
knife twice in his side. The man never uttered 
moan nor moved muscle, but lay where he had 
fallen. I think, myself, that he may have broken 
his neck with the fall. You see, gentlemen, that 1 
am keeping my promise. I am telling you every 
word of this business just exactly as it happened, 
whether it is in my favor or not.” 

He stopped, and held out his manacled hands for 
the whisky and water which Holmes had brewed 
for him. For myself, I confess that I had now con- 
ceived the utmost horror of the man, not only for 
this cold-blooded business in which he had been 
concerned, but even more for the somewhat flippant 
and careless way in which he narrated it. What- 
ever punishment was in store for him, I felt that he 
might expect no sympathy from me. Sherlock 
Holmes and Jones sat with their hands upon their 
knees, deeply interested in the story, but with the 
same disgust written upon their faces. He may 
have observed it, for there was a touch of defiance 
in his voice and manner as he proceeded : 

“It was all very bad, no doubt,” said he. “I 
should like to know how many fellows in my shoes 
would have refused a share of this loot when they 
knew that they would have their throats cut for 


148 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


their pains. Besides, it v^as my life or his when 
once he was in the fort. If he had got out, the 
whole business would have come to light, and I 
should have been court-ma rtialed and shot as likely 
as not ; for people were not very lenient at a time 
like that.” 

“ Go on with your story,” said Holmes, shortly. 

“ Well, we carried him in, Abdullah, Akbar, and 
I. A fine weight he was, too, for all that he was 
so short. Mohammed Singh was left to guard the 
door. We took him to a place which the Sikhs had 
already prepared. It was some distance off, where 
a winding passage leads to a great empty hall, the 
brick walls of which were all crumbling to pieces. 
The earth fioor had sunk in at one place, making a 
natural grave, so we left Achmet the merchant 
there, having first covered him over with loose 
bricks. This done, we all went back to the treasure. 

“ It lay where he had dropped it when he was 
first attacked. The box was the same which now 
lies open upon your table. A key was hung by a 
silken cord to that carved handle upon the top. We 
opened it, and the light of the lantern gleamed upon 
a collection of gems such, as I have read of and 
thought about when I was a little lad at Pershore. 
It was blinding to look upon them. When we had 
feasted our eyes we took them all out and made a 
list of them. There were one hundred and forty- 
three diamonds of the first water, including one 
which has been called, I believe, ‘ the Great Mogul,’ 
and is said to be the second largest stone in existence. 
Then there were ninety-seven very fine emeralds, 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


149 


and one hundred and seventy rubies, some of which, 
however, were small. There were forty carbuncles, 
two hundred and ten sapphires, sixty-one agates, 
and a great quantity of beryls, onyxes, cat’s-eyes, 
turquoises, and other stones, the very names of 
which I did not know at the time, though I have 
become more familiar with them since. Besides 
this, there were nearly three hundred very fine 
pearls, twelve of which were set in a gold chaplet. 
By the way, these last had been taken out of the 
chest and were not there Avhen I recovered it. 

“ After we had counted our treasures we put them 
back into the chest and carried them to the gate- 
way to show them to Mohammed Singh. Then we 
solemnly renewed our oath to stand by each other 
and be true to our secret. We agreed to conceal 
our loot in a safe place until the country should be 
at peace again, and then to divide it equally among 
ourselves. There was no use dividing it at present, 
for if gems of such value were found upon us it 
would cause suspicion, and there was no privacy in 
the fort nor any place where we could keep them. 
We carried the box, therefore, into the same hall 
where we had buried the body, and there, under 
certain bricks, in the best preserved wall, we made 
a hollow and put our treasure. W e made careful 
note of the place, and next day I drew four plans, 
one for each of us, and put the sign of the four of 
us at the bottom, for we had sworn that we should 
each always act for all, so that none might take ad- 
vantage. That is an oath that I can put my hand 
to my heart and swear that I have never broken. 


160 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“Well, there is no use my telling you, gentlemen, 
what came of the Indian mutiny. After Wilson took 
Delhi, and Sir Colin relieved Lucknow, the back of 
the business was broken. Fresh troops came pour- 
ing in, and Nana Sahib made himself scarce over the 
frontier, A flying column under Colonel Greathead 
came round to Agra and cleared the Pandies aivay 
from it. Peace seemed to be settling upon the 
country, and we four were beginning to hope that 
the time was at hand when we might safely go off 
with our shares of the plunder. In a moment, how- 
ever, our hopes were shattered, by our being arrested 
as the murderers of Achmet. 

“ It came about in this way. When the rajah 
put his jewels into the hands of Achmet, he did it 
because he knew that he was a trusty man. They 
are suspicious folk in the East, however ; so what 
does this rajah do but take a second even more 
trusty servant, and set him to play the spy upon the 
first? This second man was ordered never to let 
Achmet out of his sight, and he followed him like 
his shadow. He went after him that night, and 
saw him pass through the doorway. Of course he 
thought he had taken refuge in the fort, and applied 
for admission there himself next day, but could find 
no trace of Achmet. This seemed to him so strange 
that he spoke about it to a sergeant of guides, who 
brought it to the ears of the commandant. A 
thorough search was quickly made, and the body 
was discovered. Thus at the very moment that we 
thought that all was safe, we were all four seized 
and brought to trial on a charge of murder — three 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR, 


151 


of US because we had held the gate that night, and 
the fourth because he was known to have been in 
company of the murdered man. ISTot a word about 
the jewels came out at the trial, for the rajah had 
been deposed and driven out of India ; so no one had 
any particular interest in them. The murder, how- 
ever, was clearly made out, and it was certain that 
we must all have been concerned in it. The three 
Sikhs got penal servitude for life, and I was con- 
demned to death, though my sentence was after- 
ward commuted into the same as the others. 

“It was rather a queer position that we found 
ourselves in then. There we were all four tied by 
the leg, and Avith precious little chance of ever 
getting out again, Avhile we each held a secret which 
might have put each of us in a palace if Ave could 
only have made use of it. It was enough to make 
a man eat his heart out to have to stand the kick 
and the cuff of every petty jack-in-office, to have 
rice to eat and water to drink, Avhen that gorgeous 
fortune was ready for him outside, just waiting to 
be picked up. It might have driA^en me mad ; but 1 
was always a pretty stubborn one, so I just held on 
and bided my time. 

“ At last it seemed to me to have come. I was 
changed from Agra to Madras, and from there to 
Blair Island, in the Andamans. There are very fcAV 
white convicts at this settlement, and, as I had be- 
haved Avell from the first, I soon found myself a 
privileged person. I Avas given a hut in Hope ToAvn, 
which is a small place on the slopes of Mount Harriet, 
and I was left pretty much to myself. It is a dreary, 


152 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


fever-stricken place, and all beyond our little clear- 
ings was infested with wild cannibal natives, who 
were ready enough to blow a poisoned dart at us if 
they saw a chance. There were digging, and ditch- 
ing, and yam-planting, and a dozen other things to 
be done, so we were busy enough all day ; though 
in the evening we had a little time to ourselves. 
Among other things, I learned to dispense drugs for 
the surgeon, and picked up a smattering of his 
knowledge. All the time I was on the lookout for 
a chance of escape ; but it is hundreds of miles from 
any other land, and there is little or no wind in those 
seas ; so it was a terribly difficult job to get away. 

“ The surgeon. Doctor Somerton, was a fast, sport- 
ing young chap, and the other young officers would 
meet in his rooms of an evening and play cards. 
The surgery, where I used to make up my drugs, 
was next to his sitting-room, with a small window 
between us. Often, if I felt lonesome, I used to 
turn out the lamp in the surgery, and then, stand- 
ing there, I could hear their talk and watch their 
play. I am fond of a hand at cards myself, and it 
was almost as good as having one to watch the 
others. There were Major Sholto, Captain Morstan, 
and Lieutenant Bromley Brown, who were in com- 
mand of the native troops, and there were the sur- 
geon himself, and two or three prison officials, 
crafty old hands who played a nice, sly, safe game. 
A very snug little party they used to make. 

“ Well, there was one thing which very soon 
struck me, and that was that the soldiers used always 
to lose and the civilians to win. Mind, I don’t say 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. I53 

that there was anything unfair, but so it was. These 
prison chaps had done little else than play cards 
ever since they had been at the Andamans, and they 
knew each other’s game to a point, while the others 
just played to pass the time and threw their cards 
down anyhow. JS’ight after night the soldiers got 
up poorer men, and the poorer they got the more 
keen they were to play. Major Sholto was the 
hardest hit. He used to pay in notes and gold at 
first, but soon it came to notes of hand, and for big 
sums. He sometimes would win for a few deals, 
just to give him heart, and then the luck would set 
in against him worse than ever. All day he would 
wander about as black as thunder, and he took to 
drinking a deal more than was good for him. 

“ One night he lost even more heavily than usual. 
I was sitting in my hut when he and Captain Mor- 
stan came stumbling along on the way to their 
quarters. They were bosom friends, those two, and 
never far apart. The major was raving about his 
losses. 

“ ‘ It’s all up, Morstan,’ he was saying, as they 
passed my hut. ‘ I shall have to send in my papers. 
I am a ruined man.’ 

“ ‘ Nonsense, old chap ! ’ said the other, slapping 
him upon the shoulder. ‘I’ve had a nasty facer 
myself, but — ’ That was all I could hear, but it 
was enough to set me thinking. 

“ A couple of days later Major Sholto was stroll- 
ing on the beach ; so I took the chance of speaking 
to him. 

“ ‘ I wish to have your advice, major,’ said I. 


154 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“‘Well, Small, what is it?’ he said, taking his 
cheroot from his lips. 

“ ‘ I wanted to ask you, sir,’ said I, ‘ who is the 
proper person to whom hidden treasure should be 
handed over. I know where half a million worth 
lies, and, as I cannot use it myself, I thought per- 
haps the best thing that I could do would be to 
hand it over to the proper authorities, and then, 
perhaps, they would get my sentence shortened for 
me.’ 

“ ‘ Half a million. Small ? ’ he gasped, looking 
hard at me to see if I was in earnest. 

“ ‘ Quite that, sir — in jewels and pearls. It lies 
there ready for any one. And the queer thing 
about it is that the real owner is outlawed and can- 
not hold property, so that it belongs to the first 
comer.’ 

“ ‘ To government. Small,’ he stammered ; ‘ to 
government.’ But he said it in a halting fashion, 
and I knew in my heart that I had got him. 

“ ‘ You think, then, sir, that I should give the 
information to the governor-general ? ’ said T, 
quietly. 

“ ‘Well, well, you must not do anything rash, or 
that you might repent. Let me hear all about it, 
Small. Give me the facts.’ 

“ I told him the whole story, with small changes, 
so that he could not identify the place. When I 
had finished he stood stock-still and full of thought. 
I could see by the twitch of his lip that there was a 
struggle going on within him. 

“‘This is a very important matter, Small,’ he 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. I55 

said, at last. ‘ You must not say a Avord to any ona 
about it, and I shall see you again soon.’ 

“Two nights later he and his friend. Captain 
Morstan, came to my hut in the dead of the night 
Avith a lantern. 

“ ‘ I Avant you just to let Captain Morstan hear 
that story from your oAvn lips. Small,’ said he. 

“ I repeated it as I had told it before. 

“ ‘ It rings true, eh ? ’ said he. ‘ It’s good enough 
to act upon ? ’ 

“ Captain Morstan nodded. 

Look here. Small,’ said the major. ‘We have 
been talking it over, my friend here and I, and we 
have come to the conclusion that this secret of yours 
is hardly a government matter after all, but is a 
private concern of your oAAm, Avhich, of course, 
you have the power of disposing of as you think 
best. Now, the question is, Avhat price Avould you 
ask for it ? We might be inclined to take it up, and 
at least look into it, if we could agree as to terms.’ 
He tried to speak in a cool, careless way, but his 
eyes Avere shining Avith excitement and greed. 

“ ‘ Why, as to that, gentlemen,’ I answered, try- 
ing also to be cool, but feeling as excited as he did, 
‘ there is only one bargain Avhich a man in my posi- 
tion can make. I shall Avant you to help me to my 
freedom, and to help my three companions to theirs. 
We shall then take you into partnership, and give 
you a fifth share to divide between you.” 

“ ‘ Hum ! ’ said he. ‘ A fifth share ! That is not 
very tempting.’ 

“ ‘ It would come to fifty thousand aniece,’ said L 


156 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Low can we gain your freedom? You 
know very well that you ask an impossibility.’ 

“ ‘ Nothing of the sort,’ I answered. ‘ I have 
thought it all out to the last detail. The only bar 
to our escape is that we can get no boat fit for the 
voyage, and no provisions to last us for so long a 
time. There are plenty of little yachts and yawls 
at Calcutta or Madras which would serve our turn 
well. Do you bring one over. We shall engage 
to get aboard her by night, and if you will drop us 
on any part of the Indian coast you will have done 
your part of the bargain.’ 

“ ‘ If there was only one,’ he said. 

“‘None or all,’ I answered. ‘We have sworn 
it. The four of us must alwa3^s act together.’ 

“ ‘ You see, Morstan,’ said he, ‘ Small is a man of 
his word. He does not flinch from his friends. I 
think we may very well trust him.’ 

“ ‘ It’s a dirty business,’ the other answered. 
‘Yet, as you say, the money would save our com- 
missions handsomely.’ 

“ ‘ Well, Small,’ said the major, ‘ we must, I sup- 
pose, try and meet you. We must first, of course, 
test the truth of your stor}^ Tell me where the 
box is hid, and I shall get leave of absence and go 
back to India in the monthly relief -boat to inquire 
into the affair.’ 

“ ‘ Not so fast,’ said I, growing colder as he got 
hot. ‘ I must have the consent of my three com- 
rades. I tell 3^ou that it is four or none with us.’ 

“ ‘ Nonsense ! ’ he broke in. ‘ What have three 
black fellows to do with our agreement ? ’ 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 15 \ 

‘‘ ‘ Black or blue,’ said I, ‘ they are in with me, 
and we all go together.’ 

“ Well, the matter ended by a second meeting, at 
which Mohammed Singh, Abdullah Khan, and Dost 
Akbar were all present. We talked the matter over 
again, and at last we came to an arrangement. We 
were to provide both the officers with charts of the 
part of the Agra fort, and mark the place in the 
wall where the treasure was hid. Major Sholto 
was to go to India to test our story. If he found 
the box he was to leave it there, to send out a small 
yacht provisioned for a voyage, which was to lie 
off Kutland Island, and to which we were to 
make our way, and finally to return to his duties. 
Captain Morstan was then to apply for leave of 
absence, to meet us at Agra, and there we w^ere to 
have a final division of the treasure, he taking the 
major’s share as well as his own. All this we sealed 
by the most solemn oaths that the mind could think 
or the lips utter. I sat up all night with paper and 
ink, and by the morning I had the two charts all 
ready, signed with the sign of four — that is, of 
Abdullah, Akbar, Mohammed, and myself. 

‘^Well, gentlemen, I weary you with my long 
story, and I know that my friend, Mr. Jones, is 
impatient to get me safely stowed in chokey. I’ll 
make it as short as I can. The villain Sholto went 
off to India, but he never came back again. Cap- 
tain Morstan showed me his name among a list of 
passengers in one of the mail boats very shortly 
afterward. Ilis uncle had died, leaving him a for- 
tune, and he had left the army, yet, he could 


158 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Btoop :o treat five men as he had treated us. Morstan 
went over to Agra shortly afterward, and found, 
as we expected, that the treasure was indeed gone. 
The scoundrel had stolen it all, without carrying 
out one of the conditions on which we had sold 
him the secret. From that day I lived only for 
vengeance. I thought of it by day and I nursed it 
by night. It became an overpowering, absorbing 
passion with me. I cared nothing for the law — 
nothing for the gallows. To escape, to track down 
Sholto, to have my hand upon his throat — that was 
my one thought. Even the Agra treasure had 
come to be a smaller thing in my mind than the 
slaying of Sholto. 

“Well, I have set my mind on many things in 
this life, and never one which I did not carry out. 
But it was weary years before my time came. I 
have told you that I had picked up something of 
medicine. One day, when Doctor Somerton was 
down with a fever, a little Andaman Islander was 
picked up by a convict-gang in the woods. He was 
sick to death, and had gone to a lonely place to die. 
I took him in hand, though he was as venomous as 
a young snake, and after a couple of months I got 
him all right and able to walk. He took a kind of 
fancy to me then, and would hardly go back to his 
woods, but was always hanging about my hut. I 
learned a little of his lingo from him, and this made 
him all the fonder of me. 

“ Tonga — for that was his name — was a fine boat- 
man, and owned a big, roomy canoe of his own. 
When I found that he was devoted to me and would 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


159 

do anything to serve me, I saw my chance of escape. 
I talked it over with him. He was to bring his boat 
round on a certain night to an old wharf which was 
never guarded, and there he was to pick me up. I 
gave him directions to have several gourds of water 
and a lot of yams, cocoa-nuts, and sweet potatoes. 

“ He was stanch and true, was little Tonga. Ho 
man ever had a more faithful mate. At the night 
named he had his boat at the wharf. As it chanced, 
however, there was one of the convict-guard down 
there — a vile Pathan who had never missed a chance 
of insulting and injuring me. I had alwaj^s vowed 
vengeance, and now I had my chance. It was as if 
fate had placed him in my way that I might pay 
my debt before I left the island. He stood on the 
bank with his back to me, and his carbine on his 
shoulder. I looked about for a stone to beat out 
his brains with, but none could I see. Then a queer 
thought came into my head and showed me where 
I could lay my hand on a weapon. I sat down in 
the darkness and unstrapped my wooden leg. With 
three long hops I was on him. He put his carbine 
to his shoulder, but I struck him full and knocked 
the whole front of his skull in. You can see the 
split in the wood now where I hit him. We both 
went down together, for I could not keep my balance, 
but when I got up I found him still lying quiet 
enough. I made for the boat, and in an hour we 
were well out at sea. Tonga had brought all his 
earthly possessions with him, his arms and his gods. 
Among other things, he had a long bamboo spear, 
and some Andaman cocoa-nut matting, with which 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


160 

I made a sort of a sail. For ten days we were beat- 
ing about, trusting to luck, and on the eleventh we 
were picked up by a trader which was going from 
Singapore to Jiddah with a cargo of Malay pilgrims. 
They were a rum crowd, and Tonga and I soon 
managed to settle down among them. They had 
one very good quality ; they let you alone and asked 
no questions. 

“ Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that 
my little chum and I went through, you would not 
thank me, for I would have you here until the sun 
was shining. Here and there we drifted about the 
world, something always turning up to keep us from 
London. All the time, however, I never lost sight 
of my purpose. I would dream of Sholto at night. 
A hundred times I have killed him in my sleep. At 
last, however, some three or four years ago, we found 
ourselves in England. I had no great difficulty in 
finding where Sholto lived, and I set to work to 
discover whether he had realized the treasure or if 
he still had it. I made friends with some one who 
could help me — I name no names, for I don’t want 
to get any one else in a hole — and I soon found that 
he still had the jewels. Then I tried to get at him 
in many ways; but he was pretty sly, and had 
always two prize-fighters, besides his sons and his 
khitmutgar, on guard over him. 

“ One day, how ever, I go : word that he was dying. 
I hurried at once to the ga 'den, mad that he should 
slin out of my clutches like i-hat, and looking through 
the window, I saw him lying in his bed, with his 
sonft on each side of him. I’d have come through 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


161 


and taken my chance with the three of them, only, 
even as I looked at him, his jaw dropped, and I knew 
that he was gone. I got into his room that same 
night, though, and I searched his papers to see if 
there was any record of where he had hidden our 
jewels. There was not a line, however ; so I came 
away, bitter and savage as a man could be. Before 
I left I bethought me that if I ever met my Sikh 
friends again it would be a satisfaction to know that 
I had left some mark of our hatred ; so I scrawled 
down the sign of the four of us, as it had been on 
the chart, and I pinned it on his bosom. It was too 
much that he should be taken to the grave without 
some token from the men whom he had robbed and 
befooled. 

“We earned a living at this time by my exhibit- 
ing poor Tonga at fairs and other such places as 
the black cannibal. He would eat raw meat and 
dance his war-dance ; so we always had a hatful of 
pennies after a day’s work. I still heard all the 
news from Pondicherry Lodge, and for some years 
there was no news to hear, except that they were 
hunting for the treasure. At last, however, came 
what we had waited for so long. The treasure had 
been found. It was up at the top of the house, in 
Mr. Bartholomew Sholto’s chemical laboratory. I 
came at once and had a look at the place, but I could 
not see how, with my wooden leg, I was to make 
my way up to it. I learned, however, about a 
trap-door in the roof, and also about Mr. Sholto’s 
supper-hour. It seemed to me that I could manage 
the thing easily through Tonga. I brought him out 
II 


16 ^ 


THE SIGN OF THE FOtJR. 


with me with a long rope wound round his waist. 
He could climb like a cat, and he soon made his way 
through the roof, but, as ill-luck would have it, 
Bartholomew Sholto was still in the room, to his 
cost. Tonga thought he had done something very 
clever in killing him, for when I came up by the 
rope I found him strutting about as proud as a pea- 
cock. Very much surprised was he when I made 
at him with the rope’s end and cursed him for a 
little bloodthirsty imp. I took the treasure-box 
and let it down, and then slid down myself, having 
first left the sign of the four upon the table, to show 
that the jewels had come back at last to those who 
had most right to them. Tonga then pulled up the 
rope, closed the window, and made off the way that 
he had come. 

“ I don’t know that I have anything else to tell 
you. I had heard a waterman speak of the* speed 
of Smith’s launch, the ‘ Aurora,’ so I thought she 
would be a handy craft for our escape. I engaged 
with old Smith, and was to give him a big sum if he 
got us safe to our ship. He knew, no doubt, that 
there was some screw loose, but he was not in our 
secrets. All this is the truth, and if I tell it to you, 
gentlemen, it is not to amuse you — for you have not 
done me a very good turn — but it is because I be- 
lieve the best defense I can make is just to hold 
back nothing, but let all the world know how badly 
I have myself been served by Major Sholto, and how 
innocent I am of the death of his son.” 

“A very remarkable account,” said Sherlock 
Holmes. “ A fitting wind-up to an extremely in- 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


163 


teresting case. There is nothing at all new to me 
in the latter part of your narrative, except that you 
brought your own rope. That I did not know. By 
the way, I had hoped that Tonga had lost all his 
darts ; yet he managed to shoot one at us in the boat.” 

“ He had lost them all, sir, except the one which 
was in his blow-pipe at the time.” 

“ Ah, of course,” said Holmes, “ I had not thought 
of that.” 

“ Is there any other point which you would like 
to ask about ? ” asked the convict, affably. 

“ I think not, thank you,” my companion an- 
swered. 

Well, Holmes,” said Athelney Jones, you are a 
man to be humored, and we all know that you are 
a connoisseur of crime, but duty is duty, and I have 
gone rather far in doing what you and your friend 
asked me. I shall feel more at ease when we have 
our story-teller here safe under lock and key. The 
cab still waits, and there are two inspectors down- 
stairs. I am much obliged to you both for your 
assistance. Of course you will be wanted at the 
trial. Good-night to you.” 

“Good-night, gentlemen both,” said Jonathan 
Small. 

“ You first. Small,” remarked the wary Jones as 
they left the room. “ ITl take particular care that 
you don’t club me with your wooden leg, whatever 
you may have done to the gentleman at the Anda- 
man Isles.” 

“Well, and there is the end of our little drama,” 
I remarked, after we had sat some time smoking in 


164 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


silence. “ I fear that it may be the last investigation 
in which I shall have the chance of studying your 
methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honor to 
accept me as a husband in prospective.” 

He gave a most dismal groan. ‘‘ I feared as much,” 
said he ; “I really cannot congratulate you.” 

I was a little hurt. ‘‘ Have you any reason to be 
dissatisfied with my choice ? ” I asked. 

“ Hot at all. I think she is one of the most 
charming young ladies I ever met, and might have 
been most useful in such work as we have been do- 
ing. She has a decided genius that way ; witness 
the way in which she preserved that Agra plan from 
all the other papers of her father. But love is an 
emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is 
opposed to that true cold reason which I place above 
all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias 
my judgment.” 

“ I trust,” said I, laughing, “ that my judgment 
may survive the ordeal. But you look weary.” 

“ Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall 
be as limp as a rag for a week.” 

“ Strange,” said I, “ how terms of what in another 
man I should call laziness alternate with fits of 
splendid energy and vigor.” 

“ Yes,” he answered, “ there are in me the mak- 
ings of a very fine loafer, and also of a pretty spry 
sort of fellow. I often think of those lines of old 
Goethe — 

“ ‘ Schade dass die Natur niir einm Mensch aus dir schuf, 
Derm zum wiirdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen del 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


165 


By the way, apropos of this Norwood business, you 
see that they had, as I surmised, a confederate in 
the house, who could be none other than Lai Kao, 
the butler ; so Jones actually has the undivided 
honor of having caught one fish in his great haul.” 

“ The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. 
“ You have done all the work in this business. I 
get a wdfe out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray, 
what remains for you ? ” 

“ For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “ there still 
remains the cocaine bottle.” And he stretched his 
long white hand up for it. 




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A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 


I. 

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. 1 
have seldom heard him mention her under any 
other name. In his eyes she eclipses and pre- 
dominates the whole of her sex. It was not that 
he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. 
All emotions, and that one particularly, were ab- 
horrent to his cold, precise but admirably bal- 
anced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect 
reasoning and observing machine that the world 
has seen ; but as a lover, he would have placed 
himself in a false position. He never spoke of 
the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. 
They were admirable things for the observer — 
excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives 
and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit 
such intrusions into his own delicate and finely ad- 
justed temperament was to introduce a distracting 
factor which might throw a doubt upon all his 
mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or 
a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would 
not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a 

167 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


168 

nature such as his. And yet there was but one 
woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene 
Adler, of dubious and questionable memory. 

I had seen little of Holmes lately. My mar- 
riage had drifted us away from each other. My 
own complete happiness, and the home-centered 
interests which rise up around the man who first 
finds himself master of his own establishment, were 
sufiicient to absorb all my attention ; while Holmes, 
who loathed every form of society with his whole 
Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker 
Street, buried among his old books, and alternating 
from week to week between cocaine and ambition, 
the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of 
his own keen nature. He was still, as ever, deeply 
attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his 
immense faculties and extraordinary powers of 
observation in following out those clews, and clear 
ing up those mysteries, which had been abandoned 
as hopeless by the official police. From time to 
time I heard some vague account of his doings ; of 
his summons to Odessa in the case of the TrepofiT 
murder, of his clearing up of the singular tragedy 
of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and finally 
of the mission which he had accomplished so del- 
icately and successfully for the reigning family of 
Holland. Beyond these signs of his activity, how- 
ever, which I merely shared with all the readers 
of the daily, press, I knew little of my former friend 
and companion. 

One night — it was on the 20th of March, 1888 
—I was returning from a journey to a patient (for 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 


169 

1 had now returned to civil practise), when my way 
led me through Baker Street. As I passed the 
well-remembered door, which must always be asso- 
ciated in my mind Avith my wooing, and Avith the 
dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I Avas seized 
Avith a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to 
know hoAV he aA'US employing his extraordinary 
poAvers. His rooms Avere brilliantly lighted, and 
even as I looked up, I saAv his tall spare figure pass 
twice in a dark silhouette against the blind. He 
Avas pacing the room sAviftly, eagerly, with his head 
sunk upon his chest, and his hands clasped behind 
him. To me, AA"ho knew his every mood and habit, 
his attitude and manner told their OAvn story. He 
Avas at Avork again. He had risen out of his drug- 
created dreams, and Avas hot upon the scent of some 
new problem. I rang the bell, and was shown up 
to the chamber Avhich had formerly been in part 
my own. 

His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; 
but he was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly 
a word spoken, but Avith a kindly eye, he Avaved 
me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, 
and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the 
corner. Then he stood before the fire, and looked 
me over in his singular introspective fashion. 

“Wedlock suits you,” he remarked. “I think, 
Watson, that you have put on seven and a half 
pounds since I saw you.” 

“ Seven,” 1 answered. 

“Indeed, I should have thought a little more. 
Just a trifie more, I fancy, Watson. And in prac- 


170 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


tise again, I observe. You did not tell me that you 
intended to go into harness.” 

“ Then ho\y do you know ? ” 

“ I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you 
have been getting yourself very wet lately, and that 
you have a most clumsy and careless servant-girl ? ” 

“ My dear Holmes,” said I, ‘‘ this is too much. 
You would certainly have been burned had you 
lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had a 
country walk on Thursday and came home in a 
dreadful mess ; but as I have changed my clothes, 
I can’t imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary 
Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her 
notice ; but there again I fail to see how you work 
it out.” 

He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nerv- 
ous hands together. 

“ It is simplicity itself,” said he ; “ my eyes tell 
me that pn the inside of your left shoe, just where 
the fire-light strikes it, the leather is scored by six 
almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been 
caused by some one who has very carelessly scraped 
round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted 
mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction 
that you had been out in vile weather, and that you 
had a particularly malignant boot-slicking specimen 
of the London slavey. As to your practise, if a 
gentleman walks into my rooms, smelling of iodo- 
form, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon 
his right forefinger, and a bulge on the side of his 
top-hat to show where he has secreted his stetho- 
scope, I must be dull indeed if I do not pronounce 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 17X 

him to be an active member of the medical profes- 
sion.” 

I could not help laughing at the ease with which 
he explained his process of deduction. “When I 
hear you give your reasons,” I remarked, “ the thing 
always appears to me so ridiculously simple that I 
could easily do it myself, though at each successive 
instance of your reasoning I am baffled, until you 
explain your process. And yet, I believe that my 
eyes are as good as yours.” 

“ Quite so,” he answered, lighting a cigarette, and 
throwing himself down into an armchair. “You 
see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. 
For example, you have frequently seen the steps 
which lead up from the hall to this room.” 

“ Frequently.” 

“ How often ? ” 

“Well, some hundreds of times.” 

“ Then how many are there ? ” 

“ How many ? I don’t know.” 

“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet 
you have seen. That is just my point. How, I 
know there are seventeen steps, because I have both 
seen and observed. By the way, since you are in- 
terested in these little problems, and since you are 
good enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling 
experiences, you may be interested in this.” He 
threw over a sheet of thick pink-tinted note-paper 
which had been lying open upon the table. “ It 
came by the last post,” said he. “ Bead it aloud.” 

The note was undated, and without either signa- 
ture or address. 


172 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter 
to eight o’clock,” it said, ‘‘ a gentleman who desires 
to consult you upon a matter of the very deepest 
moment. Your recent services to one of the royal 
houses of Europe have shown that you are one who 
may safely be trusted with matters which are of an 
importance which can hardly be exaggerated. 
This account of you we have from all quarters 
received. Be in your chamber, then, at that hour, 
and do not take it amiss if your visitor wears a 
mask.” 

“ This is indeed a mystery,” I remarked. ‘‘ What 
do you imagine that it means? ” 

“ I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to 
theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins 
to twist facts to suit theories, 'instead of theories to 
suit facts. But the note itself — what do you deduce 
from it?” 

I carefully examined the writing, and the paper 
upon which it was written. 

“ The man who wrote it w^as presumably well to 
do,” I remarked, endeavoring to imitate my com- 
panion’s processes. “ Such paper could not be 
bought under half a crown a packet. It is peculiarly 
strong and stiff.” 

“ Peculiar — that is the very word,” said Holmes. 
“ It is not an English paper at all. Hold it up to 
the light.’” 

I did so, and saw a large E with a small g, 2i P 
and a large G with a small t woven into the texture 
of the paper. 

“ What do you make of that ? ” asked Holmes. 


/ ' A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 173 

“ The name of the maker, no doubt ; or his 
monogram, rather.” 

“ Not at all. The G with the small t stands for 
‘ Gesellschaft,’ which is the German for ‘ Company.’ 
It is a customary contraction like our ‘ Co.’ P, of 
course, stands for ‘ Papier.’ Now for the Eg. Let 
us glance at our ‘Continental Gazetteer.’” He 
took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves. 
“ Eglow, Eglonitz — here we are, Egria. It is in a 
German-speaking country — in Bohemia, not far from 
Carlsbad. ‘ Remarkable as being the scene of the 
death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous glass 
factories and paper mills.’ Ha ! ha ! my boy, what 
do you make of that ? ” His eyes sparkled, and he 
sent up a great blue triumphant cloud from his cigar- 
ette. 

“ The paper was make in Bohemia,^’ I said. 

“Precisely. And the man who wrote the note 
is a German. Do you note the peculiar construc- 
tion of the sentence — ‘ This account of you we have 
from all quarters rebeived ? ’ A Frenchman or 
Russian could not have written that. It is the 
German who is so uncourteous to his verbs. It only 
remains, therefore, to discover what is wanted by 
this German who writes upon Bohemian paper, 
and prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. 
And here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to resolve 
all our doubts.” 

As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses’ 
hoofs and grating wheels against the curb followed 
by a sharp pull at the bell. Holmes whistled. 

“A pair, by the sound,” said he. “ Yes,” he con- 


174 : 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


tinued, glancing out of the window. “ A nice little 
brougham and a pair of beauties. A hundred and 
fifty guineas apiece. There’s money in this case, 
Watson, if there is nothing else.” 

“ I think I had better go, Holmes.” 

“ Hot a bit, doctor. Stay where you are. I am 
lost without my Boswell. And this promises to be 
interesting. It would be a pity to miss it.” 

“ But your client — ” 

‘‘ Hever mind him. I may want your help, and 
so may he. Here he comes. Sit down in that arm- 
chair, doctor, and give us your best attention.” 

A slow and heavy step, which had been heard 
upon the stairs and in the passage, paused imme- 
diately outside the door. Then there was a loud 
and authoritative tap. 

‘‘ Come in ! ” said Holmes. 

A man entered who could hardly have been less 
than six feet six inches in height, with the chest 
and limbs of a Hercules. His dress was rich with a 
richness which would, in England, be looked upon as 
akin to bad taste. Heavy bands of astrakhan were 
slashed across the sleeves and front of his double- 
breasted coat, while the deep blue cloak which was 
thrown over his shoulders was lined with flame- 
colored silk, and secured at the neck with a brooch 
which consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots 
which extended half-way up his calves, and which 
were trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, com- 
pleted the impression of barbaric opulence which 
was suggested by his whole appearance. He car- 
ried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 


175 

across the upper part of his face, extending down 
past the cheek-bones, a black visard-mask, which 
he had apparently adjusted that very moment, for 
his hand was still raised to it as he entered. From 
the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man 
of strong character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a 
long, straight chin, suggestive of resolution pushed 
to the length of obstinacy. 

“You had may note ? ” he asked, with a deep, 
harsh voice and a strongly marked German accent. 
“ I told you that I would call.” He looked from 
one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to ad- 
dress. 

“ Pray take a seat,” said Holmes. “ This is my 
friend and colleague. Doctor Watson, who is oc-^ 
casionally good enough to help me in my cases. 
Whom have I the honor to address ? ” 

“ You may address me as the Count von Kramm, 
a Bohemian nobleman. I understand that this 
gentleman, your friend, is a man of honor and 
discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the 
most extreme importance. If not, I should much 
prefer to communicate with you alone.” 

I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist 
and pushed me back into my chair. “ It is both, or 
none,” said he. “ You may say before this gentle- 
man anything which you may say to me.” 

The count shrugged his broad shoulders. “ Then 
I must begin,” said he, “ by binding you both to 
absolute secrecy for two years, at the end of that 
time the matter will be of no importance. At pres- 
©nt it is not too much to say that it is of such weight 


176 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


that it may have an influence upon European his- 
tory.” 

“ I promise,” said Holmes. 

‘‘ And I.” 

“ You will excuse this mask,” continued our 
strange visitor. “ The august person who employs 
me wishes his agent to be unknown to you, and I 
may confess at once that the title by which I have 
just called myself is not exactly m3" own.” 

“ I was aware of it,” said Holmes, dryly. 

“The circumstances are of great delicacy, and 
every precaution has to be taken to quench what 
might grow to be an immense scandal, and seriously 
compromise one of the reigning families of Europe. 
To speak plainly, the matter implicates the great 
House of Ormstein, hereditary kings of Bohemia.” 

“ I was also aware of that,” murmured Holmes, 
settling himself down in his armchair, and closing 
his eyes. 

Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise 
at the languid, lounging figure of the man who had 
been, no doubt, depicted to him as the most incisive 
reasoner and most energetic agent in Europe. 
Holmes slowly reopened his eyes and looked im- 
patiently at his gigantic client. 

“ If your majesty would condescend to state 3^our 
case,” he remarked, “ I should be better able to ad- 
vise you.” 

The man sprung from his chair, and paced up and 
down the room in uncontrollable agitation. Then, 
with a gesture of desperation, he tore the mask 
from his face and hurled it upon the ground- 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 177 

You are right,” he cried, “ I am the king. Why 
should I attempt to conceal it ? ” 

“ Why, indeed ? ” murmured Holmes. “ Your 
majesty had not spoken before I was aware that I 
was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von 
Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and hered- 
itary King of Bohemia.” 

“But you can understand,” said our strange 
visitor, sitting down once more and passing his 
hand over his high, white forehead, “ you can under- 
stand that I am not accustomed to doing such busi- 
ness in my own person. Yet the matter was so 
delicate that I could not confide it to an agent with- 
out putting myself in his power. I have come in- 
cognito from Prague for the purpose of consulting 
you.” 

“ Then, pray consult,” said Holmes, shutting his 
eyes once more. 

“The facts are briefly these: Some five years 
ago, during a lengthy visit to Warsaw, I made the 
acquaintance of the well-known adventuress Irene 
Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you.” 

“ Kindly look her up in my index, doctor,” mur- 
mured Holmes, without opening his eyes. For 
many years he had adopted a system for docketing 
all paragraphs concerning men and things, so that 
it was diflacult to name a subject or a person on 
which he could not at once furnish information. In 
this case I found her biography sandwiched in be- 
tween that of a Hebrew rabbi and that of a staff- 
commander who had written a monogram upon the 
deep-sea fishes. 

12 


m 


- THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ Let me see I ” said Holmes. “ Hum ! Born in 
New Jersey in the year 1858. Contralto — hum! 
La Scala — hum! Prima-donna Imperial Opera of 
Warsaw — yes! Ketired from operatic stage — ha! 
Living in London— quite so ! Your majesty, as I 
understand, became entangled with this young per- 
son, wrote her some compromising letters, and is 
now desirous of getting those letters back.” 

“ Precisely so. But how — ” 

“ Was there a secret marriage ? ” 

“ None.” 

No legal papers or certificates ? ” 

“ None.” 

“Then I fail to follow your majesty. If this 
young person should produce her letters for black- 
mailing or other purposes, how is she to prove their 
authenticity ? ” 

“ There is the writing.” 

“ Pooh, pooh ! Forgery.” 

“ My private note-paper,” 

“ Stolen.” 

“ My own seal.” 

Imitated.” 

“ My photograph.” 

“ Bought.” 

“We were both in the photograph.” 

“ Oh, dear ! That is very bad. Your majesty 
has indeed committed an indiscretion.” 

“ I was mad — insane.” 

“ You have compromised yourself seriously.” 

“ I was only crown prince then. I was young. 
I am but thirty now.” 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 


179 


‘‘ It must be recovered.” 

“We have tried and failed.” 

“ Your majesty must pay. It must be bought.” 

“ She will not sell.” 

“ Stolen, then.” 

“ Five attempts have been made. Twice burglars 
in my pay ransacked her house. Once we diverted 
her luggage when she traveled. Twice she has been 
waylaid. There has been no result.” 

“ No sign of it ? ” 

“ Absolutely none.” 

Holmes laughed. “ It is quite a pretty little prob- 
lem,” said he. 

“ But a very serious one to me,” returned the king, 
reproachfully. 

“ Yery, indeed. And what does she propose to 
do with the photograph ? ” 

“ To ruin me.” 

“ But how ? ” 

“ I am about to be married.” 

“ So I have heard.” 

“ To Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meiningen, second 
daughter of the King of Scandinavia. You may 
know the strict principles of her family. She is 
herself the very soul of delicacy. A shadow of a 
doubt as to my conduct would bring the matter to 
an end.” 

“ And Irene Adler ? ” 

“ Threatens to send them the photograph. And 
she will do it. I know that she will do it. You do 
not know her, but she has a soul of steel. She has 
the face of the most beautiful of women and the 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


180 

mind of the most resolute of men. Rather than I 
should marry another woman, there are no lengths 
to which she ^’’ould not go — none.” 

“ You are sure that she aas not sent it yet ? ” 

“ I am sure.” 

‘‘ And why ? ” 

“ Because she has said that she would send it on 
the day when the betrothal was publicly proclaimed. 
That will be next Monday.” 

“ Oh, then we have thre 3 days yet,” said Holmes, 
with a yawn. “ That is 7ery fortunate, as I have 
one or two matters of im )ortance to look into just 
at present. Your majest ^ Avill, of course, stay in 
London for the present ? ” 

“ Certainly. You will Ind me at the Langham, 
under the name of the Count von Kramm.” 

“ Then I shall drop you a line to let you know 
how we progress.” 

“ Pray do so ; I shall be all anxiety.” 

Then, as to money ? ” 

“ You have ca'He hlanche,^^ 

“ Absolutely ? ” 

“ I tell you that I would give one of the provinces 
of my kingdom to have that photograph.” 

“ And for present expenses ? ” 

The king took a heavy chamois leather bag from 
under his cloak, and laid it on the table. 

‘‘There are three hundred pounds in gold, and 
seven hundred in notes,” he said. 

Holmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his note- 
book, and handed it to him. 

“ And mademoiselle’s address ? ” he asked. 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. Igl 

“ Is Briony Lodge, Serpentine Avenue, St. John’s 
Wood.” 

Holmes took a note of it. “ One other question,” 
said he, thoughtfully. “ Was the photograph a cab- 
inet ? ” 

“ It was.” 

“ Then, good night, your majesty, and I trust that 
we shall soon have some good news for you. And 
good night, Watson,” he added, as the wheels of the 
royal brougham rolled down the street. “ If you 
will be good enough to call to-morrow afternoon, at 
three o’clock, I should like to chat this little matter 
over with vou.” 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 




11 . 

At three o’clock precisely I was at Baker Street, 
but Holmes had not yet returned. The landlady in- 
formed me that he had left the house shortly after 
eight o’clock in the morning. I sat down beside the 
fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, 
however long he might be. I was already deeply in- 
terested in his inquiry, for, though it was surrounded 
by none of the grim and strange features which were 
associated with the two crimes which I have already 
recorded, still, the nature of the case and the exalted 
station of his client, gave it a character of its own. 
Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation 
which my friend had on hand, there was something 
in his masterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, in- 
cisive reasoning, which made it a pleasure to me to 
study his system of work, and to follow the quick, 
subtle methods by which he disentangled the most 
inextricable mysteries. So accustomed was I to his 
invariable success that the very possibility of his fail- 
ing had ceased to enter into my head. 

It was close upon four before the door opened, and 
a drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whisk- 
ered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes, 
walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to my 
friend’s amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had 
to look three times before I was certain that it was 


A scandal in bohemia. 


183 


indeed he. With a nod he vanished into the bed- 
room, whence he emerged in five minutes tweed- 
suited and respectable, as of old. Putting his hand 
into his pockets, he stretched out his legs in front of 
the fire, and laughed heartily for some minutes. 

“Well, really!’’ he cried, and then he choked, 
and laughed again until he was obliged to lie back, 
limp and helpless, in the chair. 

“ What is it ? ” 

“ It’s quite too funny. I am sure you could never 
guess how I employed my morning, or what I ended 
by doing.” 

“ I can’t imagine. I suppose that you have been 
watching the habits, and, perhaps, the house of Miss 
Irene Adler.” 

“ Quite so, but the sequel was rather unusual. I 
will tell you, however. I left the house a little after 
eight o’clock this morning in the character of a 
groom out of work. There is a wonderful sympathy 
and freemasonry among horsy men. Be one of them, 
and you will know all that there is to know. I soon 
found Briony Lodge. It is a bijou villa, with a 
garden at the back, but built out in front right up 
to the road, two stories. Chubb lock to the door. 
Large sitting-room on the right side, well furnished, 
with long windows almost to the floor, and those 
preposterous English window-fasteners which a child 
could open. Behind there was nothing remarkable, 
save that the passage window could be reached from 
the top of the coach-house. I walked round it and 
examined it closely from every point of view, but 
without noting anything else of interest. 


184 


THE SIGN OF THE POUR. 


“ I then lounged down the street, and found, as I 
expected, that there was a mews in a lane which 
runs down by one wall of the garden. I lent the 
hostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses, and 1 
received in exchange twopence, a glass of half-and- 
half, two fills of shag tobacco, and as much informa- 
tion as I could desire about Miss Adler, to say noth- 
ing of half a dozen other people in the neighborhood, 
in whom I was not in the least interested, but whose 
biographies I was compelled to listen to.” 

“ And what of Irene Adler ? ” I asked. 

“ Oh, she has turned all the men’s heads down in 
that part. She is the daintiest thing under a bonnet 
on this planet. So say the Serpentine Mews, to a 
man. She lives quietly, sings at concerts, drives 
out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for 
dinner. Seldom goes out at other times, except 
when she sings. Has only one male visitor, but a 
good deal of him. He is dark, handsome, and dash- 
ing; never calls less than once a day, and often 
twice. He is a Mr. Godfrey Horton of the Inner 
Temple. See the advantages of a cabman as a con- 
fidant. They had driven him home a dozen times 
from Serpentine Mews, and knew all about him. 
When I had listened to all that they had to tell, c 
began to walk up and down near Briony Lodge once 
more, and to think over my plan of campaign. 

“ This Godfrey Horton was evidently an important 
factor in the matter. He was a lawyer. That 
sounded ominous. What was the relation between 
them, and what the object of his repeated visits ? 
Was she his client, his friend, or his mistress? If 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 


185 


the former, she had probably transferred the photo, 
graph to his keeping. If the latter, it was less likely 
On the issue of this question depended whether I 
should continue my work at Briony Lodge, or turn 
my attention to the gentleman’s chambers in the 
Temple. It was a delicate point, and it widened the 
field of my inquiry. I fear that I bore you with 
these details, but I have to let you see my little 
difficulties, if you are to understand the situation.” 

“ I am following you closely,” I answered. 

“I was still balancing the matter in my mind, 
when a hansom cab drove up to Briony Lodge, and 
a gentleman sprung out. lie was a remarkably 
handsome man, dark, aquiline, and mustached — 
evidently the man of whom I had heard. He ap- 
peared to be in a great hurry, shouted to the cabman 
to wait, and brushed past the maid who opened the 
door, with the air of a man who was thoroughly at 
home. 

“ He was in the house about half an hour, and I 
could catch glimpses of him in the windows of the 
sitting-room, pacing up and down, talking excitedly 
and waving his arms. Of her I could see nothing. 
Presently he emerged, looking even more flurried 
than before. As he stepped up to the cab, he pulled 
a gold watch from his pocket and looked at it 
earnestly. ‘ Drive like the devil ! ’ he shouted, ‘ first 
to Gross & Hankey’s in Begent Street, and then 
to the Church of St. Monica in the Edgeware Koad. 
Half a guinea if you do it in twenty minutes ! ’ 

“Away they went, and I was just wondering 
whether I should not do well to follow them, when 


186 


"THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


up the lane came a neat little landau, the coachman 
with his coat only half buttoned, and his tie under 
his ear, while all the tags of his harness were stick- 
ing out of the buckles. It hadn’t pulled up before 
she shot out of the hall door and into it. I only 
caught a glimpse of her at the moment, but she was 
a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die 
for. 

“ ‘ The Church of St. Monica, John,’ she cried ; 
‘and half a sovereign if you reach it in twenty 
minutes.’ , 

“This was quite too good to lose, Watson. I 
was just balancing whether I should run for it, or 
whether I should perch behind her landau, when 
a cab came through the street. The driver looked 
twice at such a shabby fare ; but I jumped in before 
he could object. ‘ The Church of St. Monica,’ said 
I, ‘ and half a sovereign if you reach it in twenty 
minutes.’ It was twenty-five minutes to twelve, 
and of course it was clear enough what was in the 
wind. 

“ My cabby drove fast. I don’t think I ever 
drove faster, but the others were there before us. 
The cab and landau with their steaming horses 
were in front of the door when I arrived. I paid 
the man, and hurried into the church. There was 
not a soul there save the two whom I had followed, 
and a surpliced clergyman, who seemed to be ex- 
postulating with them. They were all three stand- 
ing in a knot in front of the altar. I lounged up 
the side aisle like any other idler who has dropped 
into a church, Suddenly, to my surprise, the three 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 


isr 

at the altar faced round to me, and Godfrey Xorton 
came running as hard as he could toward me. 

“ ‘ Thank God ! ’ he cried. ‘ You’ll do. Come ! 
Come ! ’ 

“ ‘ What then ? ’ I asked. 

“ ‘ Come, man, come ; only three minutes, or it 
won’t be legal.’ 

“ I was half dragged up to the altar, and, before 
I knew were I was, I found myself mumbling 
responses which were whispered in my ear, and 
vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and 
generally assisting in the secure tying up of Irene 
Adler, spinster, to Godfrey JS’orton, bachelor. It 
was all done in an instant, and there was the gen- 
tleman thanking me on the one side and the lady 
on the other, while the clergyman beamed on me 
in front. It was the most preposterous position in 
which I ever found myself in my life, and it was 
the thought of it that started me laughing just now. 
It seems that there had been some informality about 
their license ; that the clergyman absolutely refused 
to marry them without a witness of some sort, and 
that my lucky appearance saved the bridegroom 
from having to sally out into the streets in search 
of a best man. The bride gave me a sovereign, and 
I mean to wear it on my watch-chain in memory of 
the occasion.” 

“ This is a very unexpected turn of affairs,” said 
I ; “ and what then ? ” 

“Well, I found my plans very seriously menaced. 
It looked as if the pair might take an immediate 
departure, and so necessitate very prompt and ener- 


188 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


getic measures on my part. At the church door, 
however, they separated, he driving back to the 
Temple, and she to her own house. ‘ I shall drive 
out in the park at five as usual,’ she said, as she left 
him. I heard no more. They drove away in differ- 
ent directions, and I went off to make my own ar- 
rangements.” 

‘‘ Which are ? ” 

“ Some cold beef and a glass of beer,” he au^ 
swered, ringing the bell. “ I have been too busy 
to think of food, and I am likely to be busier still 
this evening. By the way, doctor, I shall want 
your co-operation.” 

“ I shall be delighted.” 

“ You don’t mind breaking the law ? ” 

“ Not in the least.” 

“ Nor running a chance of arrest ?” 

“ Not in a good cause.” 

‘‘ Oh, the cause is excellent ! ” 

“ Then I am your man.” 

“ I was sure that I might rely on you.” 

“ But what is it you wish ? ” 

“ When Mrs. Turner has brought in the tray I 
will make it clear to you. Now,” he said, as he 
turned hungrily on the simple fare that our land- 
lady had provided, “ I must discuss it while I eat, 
for I have not much time. It is nearly five now. 
In two hours we must be on the scene of action. 
Miss Irene, or Madame, rather, returns from her 
drive at seven. We must be at Briony Lodge t<> 
meet her.” 

“ And what then 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 


189 


‘‘You must leave that to me. I have already 
arranged what is to occur. There is only one 
point on which I must insist. You must not in- 
terfere, come what may. You understand? ” 

“ I am to be neutral ? ” 

“ To do nothing whatever. There will probably 
be some small unpleasantness. Do not join in it. 
It will end in my being conveyed into the house. 
Four or five minutes afterward the sitting-room 
window will open. You are to station yourself 
close to that open window.’’ 

“ Yes.” 

“ You are to watch me, for I will be visible to you.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And when I raise my hand — so — you will throw 
into the room what I give you to throw, and will, 
at the same time, raise the cry of fire. You quite 
•follow me ? ” 

“ Entirely.” 

“ It is nothing very formidable,” he said, taking 
a long, cigar-shaped roll from his pocket. “ It is an 
ordinary plumber’s smoke- rocket, fitted with a cap 
at either end, to make it self-lighting. Your task 
is confined to that. When you rise your cry of fire, 
it will be taken up by quite a number of people. 
You may then walk to the end of the street, and I 
will rejoin you in ten minutes. I hope that I have 
made myself clear ? ” 

I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, 
to watch you, and, at the signal, to throw in this 
object, then to raise the cry of fire, and to wait you 
at the corner of the street.” 


190 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR 


‘‘ Precisely.” 

“ Then you may entirely rely on me.” 

“ That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost 
time that I prepared for the new r61e I have to play.” 

He disappeared into his bedroom, and returned 
in a few minutes in the character of an amiable 
and simple-minded Nonconformist clergyman. His 
broad, black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, 
his sympathetic smile, and general look of peering 
and benevolent curiosity were such as Mr. John Hare 
alone could have equaled. It was not merely that 
Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his 
manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every 
fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine 
actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when 
he became a specialist in crime. 

It was a quarter past six when we left Baker 
Street, and it still wanted ten minutes to the hour 
when we found ourselves in Serpentine Avenue. It 
was already dusk, and the lamps were just being 
lighted as we paced up and down in front of Briony 
Lodge, waiting for the coming of its occupant. The 
house was just such as I had pictured it from Sher- 
lock Holmes’ succinct description, but the locality 
appeared to be less private than I expected. On 
the contrary, for a small street in a quiet neighbor- 
'hood, it was remarkably animated. There was a 
group of shabbily dressed men smocking and laugh- 
ing in a corner, a scissors-grinder with his wheel, 
two guardsmen who were flirting with a nurse-girl, 
and several well-dressed young men who were 
lounging up and down with cigars in their mouths. 



A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 


191 


‘‘You see,” remarked Holmes, as we paced to and 
fro in front of the houge, “ This marriage rather 
simplifies matters. The photograph becomes a 
double-edged weapon now. The chances are that 
she would be as averse to its being seen by Mr. God- 
frey Horton as our client is to its coming to the eyes 
of his princess. How the question is — where are we 
to find the photograph ? ” 

“ Where, indeed ? ” 

“ It is most unlikely that she carries it about with 
her. It is cabinet size. Too large for easy conceal- 
ment about a woman’s dress. She knows that the 
king is capable of having her waylaid and searched. 
Two attempts of the sort have already been made. 
We may take it, then, that she does not carry it 
about with her.” 

“ Where, then ? ” ^ 

“Her banker or her lawyer. There is that 
double possibility. But I am inclined to think 
neither. Women are naturally secretive, and they 
like to do their own secreting. Why should she 
hand it over to any one else ? She could trust her 
own guardianship, but she could not tell what in- 
direct or political influence might be brought to 
bear upon a business man. Besides, remember that 
she had resolved to use it within a few days. It 
must be where she can lay her hands upon it. It 
must be in her own house.” 

“ But it has twice been burglarized.” 

“ Pshaw ! They did not know how to look.’’ 

“ But how will you look ? ” 

“ I will not look.’’ 



192 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ What then ? ” 

‘‘ I will get her to show^me.” 

“ But she will refuse.” 

“ She will not be able to. But I hear the rumbt(» 
of wheels. It is her carriage. Now carry out 
orders to the letter.” 

As he spoke, the gleam of the side-lights of a car 
riage came round the curve of the avenue. It wa? 
a smart little landau which rattled up to the door 
of Briony Lodge. As it pulled up one of the loafing 
men at the corner dashed forward to open the door 
in the hope of earning a copper, but was elbowed 
away by another loafer who had rushed up Avith 
the same intention. A fierce quarrel broke out 
Avhich was increased by the two guardsmen, Avho 
took sides with one of the loungers, and by the 
scissors-grinder, wh% was equally hot upon the other 
side. A blow was struck, and in an instant the 
lady, who had stepped from her carriage, was the 
center of a little knot of struggling men who struck 
savagely at each other with their fists and sticks. 
Holmes dashed into the crowd to protect the lady ; 
but, just as he reached her, he gave a cry and 
dropped to the ground, Avith the blood running 
freely down his face. At his fall the guardsmen 
took to their heels in one direction and the loungers 
in the other, Avhile a number of better dressed peo- 
ple who had watched the sc uffle Avithout taking part 
in it crowded in to help t ie lady and to attend to 
the injured man. Irene -idler, as I Aviil still call 
her, had hurried up the steps ; but she stood at 
the top, with her superb figure outlined against 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. I93 

the lights of the hall, looking back into the 
street. 

“ Is the poor gentleman much hurt ? ” she asked. 

“ He is dead,” cried several voices. 

“Ho, no, there’s life in him,” shouted another. “ But 
he’ll be gone before you can get him to the hospital.” 

“He’s a brave fellow,” said a woman. “They 
would have had the lady’s purse and watch if it 
hadn’t been for him. They were a gang, and a 
rough one, too. Ah ! he’s breathing now.” 

“ He can’t lie in the street. May we bring him in, 
marm ? ” 

“ Surely. Bring him into the sitting-room. There 
is a comfortable sofa. This way, please.” Slowly 
and solemnly he was borne into Briony Lodge, and 
laid out in the principal room, while I still observed 
the proceedings from my post by the window. The 
lamps had been lighted, but the blinds had not been 
drawn, so that I could see Holmes as he lay upon 
the couch. I do not know whether he was seized 
with compunction at that moment for the part he 
was playing, but I know that I never felt more 
heartily ashamed of myself in my life when I saw 
the beautiful creature against whom I was con- 
spiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she 
waited upon the injured man. And yet it would 
be the blackest treachery to Holmes to draw back 
now from the part which he had intrusted to me. 
I hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket 
from under my ulster. After all, I thought, we are 
not injuring her. We are but preventing her from 
injuring another. 

^3 


194 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Holmes had sat upon the couch, and I saw him 
motion like a man who is in need of air. A maid 
rushed across and threw open the window. At the 
same instance I saw him raise his hand, and at the 
signal I tossed my rocket into the room with a’ cry 
of “ Fire ! ” The word was no sooner out of my 
mouth than the whole crowd of spectators, well 
dressed and ill— gentlemen hostlers, and servant- 
maids — joined in a general shriek of “ Fire ! ” Thick 
clouds of smoke curled through the room, and out 
at the open window. I caught a glimpse of rush- 
ing figures, and a moment later the voice of Holmes 
from within assuring them that it was a false alarm. 
Slipping through the shouting crowd, I made my 
way to the corner of the street, and in ten minutes 
was rejoiced to find my friend’s arm in mine, and to 
get away from the scene of uproar. He walked 
swiftly and in silence for some few minutes, until we 
had turned down one of the quiet streets which led 
toward the Edgware Road. 

“You did it very nicely, doctor,” he remarked. 
“ Nothing could have been better. It is all right.” 

“ You have the photograph ? ” 

“ I know where it is.” 

“ And how did you find out ?” 

“ She showed me, as I told you that she would.” 

“ I am still in the dark.” 

“I do not wish to make a mystery,” said he, 
laughing. “ The matter was perfectly simple. 
You, of course, saw that every one in the street 
was an accomplice. They were all engaged for the 
evening.” 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 


195 


“ I guessed as much.” 

“Then, when the row broke out, I had a little 
moist red paint in the palm of my hand. I rushed 
forward, fell down, clapped my hand to my face, 
and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick.” 

“ That also I could fathom.” 

“ Then they carried me in. She was bound to 
have me in. What else could she do ? And into 
her sitting-room, which was the very room which 
I suspected. It lay between that and her bedroom, 
and I was determined to see which. They laid me 
on a couch, I motioned for air, they were compelled 
to open the window, and you had your chance.” 

“ How did that help you ? ” 

“ It was all-important. When a woman thinks 
that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to 
rush to the thing which she values most. It is a 
perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have more 
than once taken advantage of it. In the case of the 
Darlington Substitution Scandal it was of use to 
me, and also in the Arnsworth Castle business. A 
married woman grabs at her baby — an unmarried 
one reaches for her jewel-box. How it was clear to 
me that our lady of to-day had nothing in the house 
more precious to her than what we are in quest of. 
She would rush to secure it. The alarm of fire was 
admirably done. The smoke and shouting were 
enough to shake nerves of steel. She responded 
beautifully. The photograph is in a recess behind 
a sliding panel just above the right bell-pull. She 
was there in an instant, and I caught a glimpse of 
it as she half drew it out. When I cried out that 


196 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


it was a false alarm, she replaced it, glanced at the 
rocket, rushed from the room, and I have not seen 
her since. I rose, and, making my excuses, escaped 
from the house. I hesitated whether to attempt to 
secure the photograph at once ; but the coachman 
had come in, and as he was watching me narrowly, 
it seemed safer to wait. A little over-precipitance 
may ruin all.” 

“ And now ? ” I asked. 

“ Our quest is practically finished. I shall call 
with the king to-morrow, and with you, if you care 
to come with us. We will be shown into the sitting- 
room to wait for the lady, but it is probable that 
when she comes she may find neither us nor the pho- 
tograph. It might be a satisfaction to his majesty to 
regain it with his own hands.” 

“ And when will you call ? ” 

“ At eight in the morning. She will not be up, 
so that we shall have a clear field. Besides, we 
must be prompt, for this marriage may mean a com- 
plete change in her life and habits. I must wire to 
the king without delay.” 

We had reached Baker Street, and had stopped 
at the door. He was searching his pockets for the 
key, when some one passing said : 

“ Good night. Mister Sherlock Holmes.” 

There were several people on the pavement at the 
time, but the greeting appeared to come from a 
slim youth in an ulster who had hurried by. 

“I’ve heard that voice before,” said Holmes, 
staring down the dimly lighted street. “ K'ow, I 
wonder who the deuce that could have been ? ” 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 


197 


HI. 

I SLEPT at Baker Street that night, and wo were 
engaged upon our toast and coffee in the morning, 
when the King of Bohemia rushed into the room. 

“You have really got it?” he cried, grasping 
Sherlock Holmes by either shoulder, and looking 
eagerly into his face. 

“ Hot 3 ^et.” 

“ But you have hopes ? ” 

“ 1 have hopes.” 

“ Then come. I am all impatience to be gone.” 

“We must have a cab.” 

“ Ho, my brougham is waiting.” 

“ Then that will simplify matters.” We de^ 
scended, and started off once more for Briony Lodge. 

“ Irene Adler is married,” remarked Holmes. 

“ Married ! When ? ” 

“ Yesterday.” 

“ But to whom ? ” 

“ To an English lawyer named Horton.” 

“ But she could not love him.” 

“ I am in hopes that she does.” 

“ And Avhy in hopes ? ” 

“ Because it would spare your majesty all fear of 
future annoyance. If the lady loves her husband, 
she does not love your majesty. If she does not 


198 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


love your majesty, there is no reason why she should 
interfere with your majesty’s plan. ’ 

It is true. And yet — Well, I wish she had 
been of my own station. What a queen she would 
have made ! ” He relapsed into a moody silence, 
which was not broken until we drew up in Serpen- 
tine Avenue. 

The door of Briony Lodge was open, and an 
elderly woman stood upon the steps. She watched 
us with a sardonic eye as we stepped from the 
brougham. 

“ Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I believe ? ” said she. 

“ I am Mr. Holmes,” answered my companion, 
looking at her with a questioning and rather startled 
gaze. 

“ Indeed ! My mistress told me that you were 
likely to call. She left this morning, with her 
husband, by the 5:15 train from Charing Cross, for 
the Continent.” 

“ What I ” Sherlock Holmes staggered back white 
with chagrin and surprise. 

“ Do you mean that she has left England ? ” 

“ Never to return.” 

“ And the papers ? ” asked the king, hoarsely. 
“All is lost!” 

“We shall see.” He pushed past the servant, 
and rushed into the drawing-room, followed by the 
king and myself. The furniture was scattered 
about in every direction, with dismantled shelves, 
and open drawers, as if the lady had hurriedlj^ ran- 
sacked them before her flight. Holmes rushed at 
the bell-pull, tore back a small sliding shutter, and 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMlAc 


.99 

plunging in his hand, pulled out a photograph and 
a letter. The photograph was of Irene Adler her- 
self in evening dress ; the letter was superscribed 
to ‘‘ Sherlock Holmes, Esq. To be left till called 
for.” My friend tore it open, and we all three read 
it together. It Avas dated at midnight of the pre- 
ceding night, and ran in this way : 

“ My dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes, — You really 
did it very Avell. You took me in completely. 
Until after the alarm of the fire, I had not a sus- 
picion. But then, Avhen I found how I had betrayed 
myself, I began to think. I had been warned 
against you months ago. I had been told that if 
the king employed an agent, it would certainly be 
you. And your address had been given me. Yet, 
Avith all this, you made me reveal A\"hat you AA^anted 
to know. Even after I became suspicious, I found 
it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind old clergy- 
man. But, you knoAV, I have been trained as an 
actress myself. Male costume is nothing new to 
me. I often take advantage of the freedom Avhich 
it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to Avatch you, 
ran up-stairs, got into my Avalking clothes, as I call 
them, and came doAAm just as you departed, 

“Well, I followed you to the door, and so made 
sure that I Avas really an object of interest to the 
celebrated Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Then I, rather 
imprudently, Avished you good-night, and started for 
the Temple to see my husband. 

“We both thought the best resource was flight, 
when pursued by so formidable an antagonist ; so 


200 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


you will find the nest empty when you call to-morrow. 
As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace. 
I love and am loved by a better man than he. The 
king may do what he will without hindrance from 
one whom he has cruelly wronged. I keep it only 
to safeguard myself, and preserve a weapon which 
will always secure me from any steps which he 
might take in the future. I leave a photograph 
which he might care to possess ; and I remain, dear 
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, very truly yours, 

“ Irene Horton, nee Adler.” 

‘‘ What a woman — oh, what a woman ! ” cried the 
King of Bohemia, when we had all three read this 
epistle. Did I not tell you how quick and resolute 
she was? Would she not have made an admirable 
queen ? Is it not a pity that she was not on my 
level?” 

“ From what I have seen of the lady, she seems 
indeed, to be on a very different level to your maj- 
esty,” said Holmes, coldl3^ “ I am sorry that I 
have not been able to bring ^^our majesty’s business 
to a more successful conclusion.” 

‘‘ On the contrary, my dear sir,” cried the king, 
‘‘nothing could be more successful. I know that 
her word is inviolate. The photograph is now as 
safe as if it were in the fire.” 

“ I am glad to hear your majesty say so.” 

“ I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me 
in what wa^" I can reward you. This ring; — ” He 
slipped an emerald snake ring from his finger, and 
held it out upon the palm of his hand. 


A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA. 201 

^ Yo \Y majesty has something which I should 
value even more highly,” said Holmes. 

“ You have but to name it.” 

‘‘ This photograph ! ” 

The king stared at him in amazement. 

Irene’s photograph ! ” he cried. “ Certainly, if 
you wish it.” 

“ I thank your majesty. Then there is no more 
to be done in the matter. I have the honor to wish 
you a very good morning.” He bowed, and turn- 
ing away without observing the hand which the 
king had stretched out to him, he set off in my com- 
pany for his chambers. 

And that was how a great scandal threatened to 
affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best 
plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a 
woman’s wit. He used to make merry over the 
cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it 
of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when 
he refers to her photograph, it is always under the 
honorable title of the woman. 






.f 


/ 




A CASE OF IDENTITY. 


“ My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes, as we 
sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at 
Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than any- 
thing which the mind of man could invent. We^ 
would not dare to conceive the things which are 
really mere commonplaces of existence. If we 
could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover 
over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and 
peep in at the queer things which are going on, the 
strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-pur- 
poses, the wonderful chains of events, working 
through generations, and leading to the most outre 
results, it would make all fiction, with its conven- 
tionalities and foreseen conclusions, most stale and 
unprofitable.” 

“ And yet I am not convinced of it,” I an- 
swered. 

“ The cases which come to light in the papers 
are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar enough. 
We have in our police reports realism pushed to 
its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be 
confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic.” 

“ A certain selection and discretion must be used 

203 


204 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


in producing a realistic effect,” remarked Holmes^, 
‘‘ This is wanting in the police report, where more 
stress is laid perhaps upon the platitudes of the 
magistrate than upon the details, which to an ob» 
server contain the vital essence of the whole matter. 
Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the 
commonplace.” 

I smiled and shook my head. “ I can quite un- 
derstand your thinking so,” I said. “Of course, 
in your position of unofficial adviser and helper to 
everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout 
three continents, you are brought in contact with 
all that is strange and hizarre. But here ” — I picked 
up the morning paper from the ground — “ let us 
put it to a practical test. Here is the first heading 
upon which I come. ‘A husband’s cruelty to his 
wife.’ There is half a column of print, but I know 
without reading it that it is all perfectly familiar 
to me. There is, of course, the other woman, the 
drink, the push, the blow, the bruise, the unsym- 
pathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of writers 
could invent nothing more crude.” 

“ Indeed your example is an unfortunate one for 
your argument,” said Holmes, taking the paper, and 
glancing his eye down it. “ This is the Dundas 
separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged 
in clearing up some small points in connection with 
it. The husband was a teetotaler, there was no 
other woman, and the conduct complained of was that 
he had drifted into the habit of winding up every 
meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them 
at his wife, which you will allow is not an action 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. 


205 


likely to occur to the imagination of the average 
story-teller. Take a pinch of snuff, doctor, and 
acknowledge that I have scored over you in your 
example.” 

He held out his snuff-box of old gold, with a great 
amethyst in the center of the lid. Its splendor was 
in such contrast to his homely ways and simple life 
that I could not help commenting upon it. 

“ Ah ! ” said he, “ I forgot that I had not seen 
you for some \veeks. It is a little souvenir from 
the King of Bohemia, in return for my assistance 
in the case of the Irene Adler papers.” 

“ And the ring ? ” I asked, glancing at a remark- 
able brilliant which sparkled upon his finger. 

“ It was from the reigning family of Holland, 
though the matter in which I served them was of 
such delicacy that I cannot confide it even to you, 
who have been good enough to chronicle one or tw^o 
of my little problems.” 

“ And have you any on hand just now ? ” I asked 
with interest. 

“ Some ten or twelve, but none which present any 
features of interest. They are important, you un- 
derstand, without being interesting. Indeed I 
have found that it is usually in unimportant matters 
that there is a field for the observation, and for 
the quick analysis of cause and effect w^hich gives 
the charm to an investigation. The larger crimes 
are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, 
the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive. In these 
cases, save for one rather intricate matter which has 
been referred to me from Marseilles^ there is noth* 


206 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


ing which presents any features of interest. It is 
possible, however, that I may have something better 
before very many minutes are over, for this is one 
of my clients, or I am much mistaken.” 

He had risen from his chair, and was standing 
between the parted blinds, gazing down into the 
dull, neutral-tinted London street. Looking over 
his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite 
there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa 
round her neck, and a large curling red feather 'n 
a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish 
Duchess-of-Devonshire fashion over her ear. 

From under this great panoply she peeped up in 
a nervous, hesitating fashion at our -windows, while 
her body oscillated backward and forward, and her 
fingers fidgeted with her glove buttons. Suddenly, 
with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves the 
bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the 
sharp clang of the bell. 

“ I have seen those symptoms before,” said 
Holmes, throwing his cigarette into the fire. “ Oscil- 
lation upon the pavement always means an affaire 
de cceur. She would like advice, but is not sure that 
the matter is not too delicate for communication. 
And yet even here we may discriminate. When a 
woman has been seriously wronged by a man, she no 
longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken 
bell wire. Here we may take it that there is a love 
matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as 
perplexed or grieved. But here she comes in person 
to resolve our doubts.” 

As he spoke, there was a tap at the door, and the 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. 


207 


boy in buttons entered to announce Miss Mary 
Sutherland, while the lady herself loomed behind 
his small black figure like a full-sailed merchantman 
behind a tiny pilot boat. Sherlock Holmes web 
corned her with the easy courtesy for which he was 
remarkable, and having closed the door, and bowed 
her into an armchair, he looked her over in the 
minute, and yet abstracted fashion which was pecul- 
iar to hiiOc 

‘‘Do you not find,” he said, “that with your 
short sight it is a little trying to do so much type- 
writing ? ” 

“ I did at first,” she answered, “ but now I know 
where the letters are without looking.” Then, 
suddenly realizing the full purport of his words, she 
gave a violent start, and looked up wdth fear and 
astonishment upon her broad, good-humored face. 
“ You’ve heard about me, Mr. Holmes,” she cried, 
“ else how could you know all that ? ” 

“ Hever mind,” said Holmes, laughing, “ it is my 
business to know things. Perhaps I have trained 
myself to see what others overlook. If not, why 
should you come to consult me ? ” 

“ I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from 
Mrs. Etherege, whose husband you found so easily 
when the police and every one had given him up 
for dead. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as 
much for me. I’m not rich, but still I have a hun- 
dred a year in my own right, besides the little that 
I make by the machine, and I would give it all to 
know what has become of Mr. Hosmer Angel.” 

“Why did you come away to consult me in such 


208 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


a hurry ? ” asked Sherlock Holmes, with his finger* 
tips together, and his eyes to the ceiling. 

Again a startled look came over the somewhat 
vacuous face of Miss Mary Sutherland. “ Yes, I 
did bang out of the house,” she said, “ for it made 
me angry to see the easy way in which Mr. Windi- 
bank — that is, my father — took it all. He would 
not go to the police, and he would not go to you, 
and so at last, as he Avould do nothing, and kept on 
saying that there was no harm done, it made me 
mad, and I just on with my things and came right 
away to you.” 

“ Your father,” said Holmes, “ your stepfather, 
surely, since the name is different.” 

“ Yes, my stepfather. I call him father, though 
it sounds funny, too, for he is only five years and 
two months older than myself.” 

“ And your mother is alive ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; mother is alive and well. I wasn’t best 
pleased, Mr. Holmes, when she married again so 
soon after father’s death, and a man who was nearly 
fifteen years younger than herself. Father was a 
plumber in the Tottenham Court Koad, and he left 
a tidy business behind him, which mother carried on 
with Mr. Hardy, the foreman ; but when Mr. Windi- 
bank came he made her sell the business, for he was 
very superior, being a traveler in wines. They got 
four thousand seven hundred for the good-will and 
interest, which wasn’t near as much as father could 
have got if he had been alive.” 

I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient 
under this rambling and inconsequential narrative, 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. ^*09 

but, on the contrary, he had listened with the 
greatest concentration of attention. 

“ Your own little income,” he asked, ‘‘ does it 
come out of the business ? ” 

“ Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate, and was left 
me by my uncle 'Ned in Auckland. It is in New 
Zealand stock, paying four and a half per cent. 
Two thousand live hundred pounds was the amount, 
but I can only touch the interest.” 

“ You interest me extremely,” said Holmes. 

And since you draw so large a sum as a hundred 
a year, with what you earn into the bargain, you 
no doubt travel a little, and indulge yourself in 
every way. I believe that a single lady can get on 
very nicely upon an income of about sixty pounds.” 

“ I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, 
but you understand that as long as I live at 
home I don’t wish to be a burden to them, and so 
they have the use of the money just while I am stay- 
ing with them. Of course that is only just for the 
time. Mr. Windibank draws my interest every 
quarter, and pays it over to mother, and I find that 
I can do pretty well with what I earn at typewrit- 
ing. It brings me twopence a sheet, and I can 
often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in a 
day.” 

“ You have made your position very clear to me,” 
said Holmes. “ This is my friend. Doctor W atson, 
before whom you can speak as freely as before my- 
self. Kindly tell us now all about your connection 
with Mr. Hosmer Angel.” 

A flush stole over Miss Sutherland’s face, and she 
14 


210 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


picked nervously at the fringe of her jacket. "1 
met him first at the gas-fitters’ ball,” she said. 
“ They used to send father tickets when he was 
alive, and then afterward they remembered us, and 
sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank did not wish 
us to go. He never did wish us to go anywhere. 
He would get quite mad if I wanted so much as to 
join a Sunday-school treat. But this time I was 
set on going, and I would go, for what right had he 
to prevent ? He said the folk were not fit for us 
to know, when all father’s friends were to be there. 
And he said that I had nothing fit to wear, when 
I had my purple plush that I had never so much as 
taken out of the drawer. At last, when nothing else 
would do, he went off to France upon the business 
of the firm ; but we Avent, mother and I, Avith 
Mr. Hardy, Avho used to be our foreman, and it was 
there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel.” 

“ I suppose,” said Holmes, “ that when Mr. Wind- 
ibank came back from France, he Avas very annoyed 
at your having gone to the ball ? ” 

“ Oh, Avell, he was very good about it. He laughed, 
I remember, and shrugged his shoulders, and said 
there was no use denying anything to a woman, 
for she Avould have her way.” 

“ I see. Then at the gas-fitters’ ball you met, as 
I understand, a gentleman called Mr. Hosmer 
Angel ? ” 

“ Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called 
next day to ask if Ave had got home all safe, and 
after that we met him — that is to say, Mr. Holmes, 
1 met him tAvice for Avalks, but after that father 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. 211 

came back again, and Mr. Ilosmer Angel could not 
come to the house any more.” 

“No?” 

“Well, you know, father didn’t like anything of 
the sort. He wouldn’t have any visitors if he could 
help it, and he used to say that a woman should be 
happy in her own family circle. But then, as I used 
to say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to 
begin with, and I had not got mine yet.” 

“ But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel ? Did he 
make no attempt to see you ? ’* 

“ Well, father was going off to France again in 
a week, and Hosmer wrote and said that it would 
be safer and better not to see each other until he 
had gone. We could write in the meantime, and 
he used to write every day. I took the letters in 
the morning, so there was no need for father to 
know.” 

“ Were you engaged to the gentleman at this 
time ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after 
the first walk that we took. Hosmer — Mr. Angel 
—was a cashier in an office in Leadenhall Street — 
and — ” 

“ What office ? ” 

“ That’s the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don’t 
know.” 

“ Where did he live, then ? ” 

“ He slept on the premises.” 

“ And you don’t know his address ? ” 

“ No — except that it was Leadenhall Street.” 

« Where did you address your letters, then ? 


212 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


“ To the Leadenhall Sti 3et Post-office, to be left 
till called for. He said that if they were sent to the 
office he would be chaffe< i by all the other clerks 
about having letters fron a lady, so 1 offered to 
typewrite them, like he did his, but he wouldn’t 
have that, for he said that when I wrote them they 
seemed to come from me, but when they were type- 
written he always felt that the machine had come 
between us. That will ju ^t show you how fond he 
was of me, Mr. Holmes, and the little things that 
he would think of.” 

“ It was most suggestive,” said Holmes. ^ It has 
long been an axiom of mine that the little things 
are infinitely the most important. Can you re- 
member any other little thmgs about Mr. Hosmer 
Angel ? ” 

“ He was a very shy mar, Mr. Holmes. He would 
rather walk with me in the evening than in the 
daylight, for he said that he hated to be conspicu- 
ous. Yery retiring and gcmtlemanly he was. Even 
his voice was gentle. E.e’d had the quinsy and 
swollen glands when he was young, he told me, and 
it had left him with a weak throat and a hesitating, 
whispering fashion of speech. He was always well- 
dressed, very neat and ])lain, but his eyes were 
weak, just as mine are, and he wore tinted glasses 
against the glare.” 

“ Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, 
your stepfather, returned to Prance ? ” 

“ Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again, and 
proposed that we should marry before father came 
back. He was in dreadful earnest, and made me 

/. - 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. 


213 


swear, with my hands on the Testament, that what- 
ever happened 1 would always be true to him. 
Mother said he was quite right to make me swear, 
and that it was a sign of his passion. Mother was 
all in his favor from the first, and was even fonder 
of him than I was. Then, when they talked of 
marrying within the week, I began to ask about 
father ; but they both said never to mind about 
father, but just to tell him afterward, and mother 
said she would make it all right with him. I didn’t 
quite like that, Mr. Holmes. It seemed funny that 
I should ask his leave, as he was only a few years 
older than me ; but I didn’t want to do anything 
on the sly, so I wrote to father at Bordeaux, where 
the company has its French offices, but the letter 
came back to me on the very morning of the wed- 
ding.” 

“ It missed him, then ? ” 

“ Yes, sir, for he had started to England just be- 
fore it arrived.” 

“ Ha ! that was unfortunate. Your wedding was 
arranged, then, for the Friday. Was it to be in 
church ? ” 

“ Yes, sir, but very quietly. It was to be at St. 
Saviour’s, near King’s Cross, and we were to have 
breakfast afterward at the St. Pancras Hotel. 
Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were 
two of us, he put us both into it, and stepped him 
self into a four-wheeler, which happened to be the 
only other cab in the street. We got to the church 
first, and when the four-wheeler drove up we waited 
for him to step out, but he never did, and when the 


m 


THE SIGN OP THE POUR. 


cabman got down from the box and looked, there 
was no one there ! The cabman said that he could 
not imagine what had become of him, for he had 
seen him get in with his own eyes. That was last 
Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or heard 
anything since then to throw any light upon what 
became of him.” 

“ It seems to me that you have been very shame- 
fully treated,” said Holmes. 

“ Oh, no, sir ! He was too good and kind to leave 
me so. Why, all the morning he was saying to me 
that, whatever happened, I was to be <rue; and 
that even if something quite unforeseen occurred 
to separate us, I was always to remember that I 
was pledged to him, and that he would claim his 
pledge sooner or later. It seemed strange talk for 
a wedding morning, but what has happened since 
gives a meaning to it.” 

“ Most certainly it does. Your own opinion is, 
then, that some unforeseen catastrophe has occurred 
to him ? ” 

“ Yes, sir. I believe that he foresaw some danger, 
or else he would not have talked so. And then I 
think that what he foresaw happened.” 

“ But you have no notion as to what it could have 
been ? ” 

“ Hone.” 

‘‘ One more question. How did your mother take 
the matter?” 

“ She was angry, and said that I was never to 
speak of the matter again.” 

“ And your father ? Did you teU him ? ” 


A CASE OP IDENTITY. 


^15 

‘‘Yes, and he seemed to think, with me, that 
something had happened, and that I should hear of 
Hosmer again. As he said, what interest could any 
one have in bringing me to the door of the church, 
and then leaving me ? Now, if he had borrowed 
my money, or if he had married me and got my 
money settled on him, there might be some reason ; 
but Hosmer was very independent about money, 
and never would look at a shilling of mine. And 
yet what could have happened ? And why could 
he not write ? Oh ! it drives me half mad to think 
of, and I can’t sleep a wink at night.” She pulled 
a little handkerchief out of her muff, and began to 
sob heavily into it. 

“1 shall glance into the case for you,” said 
Holmes, rising, “ and I have no doubt that we shall 
reach some definite result. Let the weight of the 
matter rest upon me now, .iiid do not let your mind 
dwell upon it further. Above all, try to let Mr. 
Hosmer Angel vanish from your memory, as he has 
done from your life.” 

“ Then you don’t think I’ll see him again ? ” 

“ I fear not.” 

“ Then what has happened to him ? ” 

“ You will leave that question in my hands. I 
should like an accurate description of him, and any 
letters of his which you can spare.” 

“ I advertised for him in last Saturday’s Chronicle^^ 
said she. “ Here is the slip, and here are four letters 
from him.” 

“ Thank you. And your address ? ” 

“ No. 31, Lyon Place, Camberwell.’^ 


216 


THE^SIGN OF THE FOUR 


“Mr. Angel’s address you never had, I under 
stand. Where is your father’s place of business ? ” 

“ lie travels for Westhouse & Mar bank, the great 
claret importers of Fenchurch Street.” 

“Thank you. You have made your statement 
very clearly. You will leave the papers here, and 
remember the advice which I have given you. Let 
the whole incident be a sealed book, and do not 
allow it to affect your life.” 

“ You are very kind. Mr. Holmes, but I cannot 
do that. I shall be true to Hosmer. He shall find 
me ready when he comes back.” 

For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, 
there was something noble in the simple faith of 
our visitor which compelled our respect. She laid 
her little bundle of papers upon the table, and went 
her way, with a promise to come again whenever 
she might be summoned. 

Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes 
with his finger-tips still pressed together, his legs 
stretched out in front of him, and his gaze directed 
upward to the ceiling. Then he took down from 
the rack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to 
him as a counselor, and, having lighted it, he leaned 
back in his chair, with thick blue cloud- wreaths 
spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor 
in his face. 

“Quite an interesting study, that maiden,” he 
observed. “ I found her more interesting than her 
little problem, which, b}^ the way, is rather a trite 
one. You will find parallel cases, if you consult 
my index, in Andover in ’77, and there was some* 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. 


217 


thing of the sort at the Hague last year. Old as is 
the idea, however, there were one or two details 
which were new to me. But the maiden herself 
was most instructive.” 

“ You appeared to read a good deal upon her 
which was quite invisible to me,” I remarked. 

“ Hot invisible, but unnoticed, Watson. You 
did not know where to look, and so you missed all 
that was important. I can never bring you to real- 
ize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of 
thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from 
a boot-lace. How, what did you gather from that 
woman’s appearance ? Describe it.” 

“Well, she had a slate-colored, broad-brimmed 
straw hat, with a feather of a brickish red. Her 
jacket was black, with black beads sewed upon it 
and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her dress 
was brown, rather darker than coffee color, with a 
little purple plush at the neck and sleeves. Her 
gloves were grayish, and were worn through at the 
right forefinger. Her boots I didn’t observe. She 
had small round, hanging gold earrings, and a general 
air of being fairly well to do, in a vulgar, comfort- 
able, easy-going way.” 

Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together 
and chuckled. 

“ ’Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along 
wonderfully. You have really done very well in- 
deed. It is true that you have missed everything of 
importance, but you have hit upon the method, and 
you have a quick eye for color. Hever trust to 
general impressions, my boy, but concentrate your- 


218 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Belf upon details. My first glance is always at a 
woman’s sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first 
to take the knee of the trouser. As you observe, 
this woman had plush upon her sleeves, which is a 
most useful material for showing traces. The double 
line a little above the wrist, where the typewritist 
presses against the table, was beautifully defined. 
The sewing-machine, of the hand type, leaves a 
similar mark, but only on the left arm, and on the 
side of it furthest from the thumb, instead of being 
right across the broadest part, as this was. I then 
glanced at her face, and observing the dint of a 
pince-nez at either side of her nose, I ventured a 
remark upon short sight and typewriting, which 
seemed to surprise her.” 

“ It surprised me.” 

‘‘ But, surely, it was very Oidvious. I was then 
much surprised and interested on glancing down to 
observe that, though the boots which she was wear- 
ing were not unlike each other, they were really 
odd ones, the one having a slightly decorated toe- 
cap and the other a plain one. One was buttoned 
only in the two lower buttons out of five, and the 
other at the first, third and fifth. How, when you 
see that a young lady, otherwise neatly dressed, has 
come away from home with odd boots, half-buttoned 
it is no great deduction to say that she came away 
in a hurry.” 

“ And what else ? ” I asked, keenly interested, as 
I always was, by my friend’s incisive reasoning. 

“ I noted, in passing, that she had written a note 
before leaving home, but after being fully dressed 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. 


219 


You observed that her right glove was torn at the 
forefinger, but you did not, apparently, see that both 
glove and finger were stained with violet ink. She 
had written in a hurry, and dipped her pen too deep. 
It must have been this morning, or the mark would 
not remain, clear upon the finger. All this is amus- 
ing, though rather elementary, but I must go back 
to business, Watson. Would you mind reading me 
the advertised description of Mr. Hosmer Angel ? ” 

I held the little printed slip to the light. “ Miss- 
ing,” it said, “ on the morning of the fourteenth, a 
gentleman named Hosmer Angel. About five feet 
seven inches in height ; strongly built, sallow com- 
plexion, black hair, a little bald in the center, bushy, 
black side-whiskers and mustache; tinted glasses; 
slight infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last 
seen, in black frock coat faced with silk, black waist- 
coat, gold Albert chain, and gray Harris tweed 
trousers, with brown gaiters over elastic-sided boots. 
Known to have been employed in an office in Lead- 
enhall Street. Anybody bringing,” etc., etc. 

“ That will do,” said Holmes. “ As to the letters,” 
he continued, glancing over them, “ they are very 
commonplace. Absolutely no clew in them to Mr. 
Angel, save that he quotes Balzac once. There is 
one remarkable point, however, which will no doubt 
strike you.” 

“ They are typewritten,” I remarked. 

“ Hot only that, but the signature is typewritten. 
Look at the neat little ‘ Hosmer Angel ’ at the 
bottom. There is a date, you see, but no super- 
scription except Leadenhall Street, which is rather 


220 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


vague. The point about the signature is very sug- 
gestive — in fact, we may call it conclusive.” 

“ Of what ? ” 

“ My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how 
strongly it bears upon the case ? ” 

I cannot say that I do, unless it were that he 
wished to be able to deny his signature if an action 
for breach of promise were instituted.” 

“ No, that was not the point. However, I shall 
write two letters which should settle the matter. 
One is to a firm in the city, the other is to the young 
lady’s stepfather, Mr. Windibank, asking . him 
whether he could meet us here at six o’clock to- 
morrow evening. It is just as well that we should 
do business with the male relatives. And now, 
doctor, we can do nothing until the answers to those 
letters come, so we may put our little problem upon 
the shelf for the interim.” 

I had had so many reasons to believe in my 
friend’s subtle powers of reasoning, and extraordi- 
nary energy in action, that I felt that he must have 
some solid grounds for the assured and easy de- 
meanor with which he treated the singular mystery 
which he had been called upon to fathom. Once 
only had I known him to fail, in the case of the 
King of Bohemia and of the Irene Adler photograph, 
but when I looked back to the weird business of the 
“ Sign of Four,” and the extraordinary circumstances 
connected with the “ Study in Scarlet,” I felt that 
it would be a strange tangle indeed which he could 
not unravel. 

I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. 221 

with the conviction that when I came again on the 
next evening I would find that he held in his hands 
all the clews which would lead up to the identity of 
the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary Suther- 
land. 

A professional case of great gravity was engaging 
my own attention at the time, and the whole of next 
day I was busy at the bedside of the sufferer. It 
was not until close upon six o’clock that I found my- 
self free, and was able to spring into a hansom and 
drive to Baker Street, half afraid that I might be 
too late to assist at the denouement of the little mys* 
tery. I found Sherlock Holmes alone, however, 
half asleep, with his long, thin form curled up in 
the recesses of his armchair. A formidable array 
of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent, cleanly 
smell of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had 
spent his day in the chemical work which was so 
dear to him. 

“ Well, have you solved it ? ” I asked as I entered. 

“ Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta.” 

“ Ho, no ; the mystery ! ” I cried. 

“ Oh, that ! I thought of the salt that I have been 
working upon. There was never any mystery in 
the matter, though, as I said yesterday, some of the 
details are of interest. The only drawback is that 
there is no law, I fear, that can touch the scoun- 
drel.” 

‘‘ Who was he, then, and what was his object in 
deserting Miss Sutherland ? ” 

The question was hardly out of my mouth, and 
Holmes had not yet opened his lips to reply, when 


222 


TllE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


we heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and a tap 
at the door. 

This is the girl’s stepfather, Mr. James Windi- 
bank,” said Holmes. “ He has written to me to say 
that he would be here at six. Come in I ” 

The man who entered was a sturdy, middle-sized 
fellow, some thirty years of age, clean shaven, and 
sallow skinned, with a bland, insinuating manner, and 
a pair of wonderfully sharp and penetrating gray 
eyes. He shot a questioning glance at each of us, 
placed his shiny top hat upon the sideboard, and, 
with a slight bow, sidled down into the nearest 
chair. 

“ Good evening, Mr. James Windibank,” said 
Holmes. “ I think this typewritten letter is from 
you, in which you made an appointment with me 
for six o’clock ? ” 

“Yes, sir. I am afraid that I am a little late, 
but I am not quite my own master, you know. I 
am sorry that Miss Sutherland has troubled you 
about this little matter, for I think it is far better 
not to wash linen of the sort in public. It was quite 
against my wishes that she came, but she is a very 
excitable, impulsive girl, as you may have noticed, 
and she is not easily controlled when she has made 
up her mind on a point. Of course, I did not mind 
you so much, as you are not connected with the 
official police, but it is not pleasant to have a family 
misfortune like this noised abroad. Besides, it is a 
useless expense, for how could you possibly find this 
Hosmer Angel ? ” 

“On the contrary,” said Holmes, quietly, “ I have 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. 223 

every reason to believe that I will succeed in dis- 
covering Mr. Hosmer Angel.” 

Mr Windibank gave a violent start, and dropped 
his gloves. “ I am delighted to hear it,” he said. 

“ It is a curious thing,” remarked Holmes, “ that 
a typewriter has really quite as much individuality 
as a man’s handwriting. Unless they are quite new 
no two of them write exactly alike. Some letters 
get more worn than others, and some wear only on 
one side. How, you remark in this note of yours, 
Mr. Windibank, that in every case there is some 
little slurring over the and a slight defect in the 
tail of the r. There are fourteen other characteris- 
tics, but those are the more obvious.” 

“ We do all our correspondence with this machine 
at the office, and no doubt it is a little worn,” our 
visitor answered, glancing keenly at Holmes with 
his bright little eyes. 

“ And now I will show you what is really a very 
interesting study, Mr. Windibank,” Holmes con- 
tinued. “ I think of writing another little mono- 
graph some of these days on the typewriter and its 
relation to crime. It is a subject to which I 
have devoted some little attention. I have here 
four letters which purport to come from the 
missing man. They are all typewritten. In each 
case, not only are the slurred and the r^s tailless, 
but you will observe, if you care to use my magni- 
fying lens, that the fourteen other characteristics to 
which I have alluded are there as well.” 

Mr. Windibank sprung out of his chair, and 
picked up his hat. “ I cannot waste time over this 


224 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


sort of fantastic talk, Mr. Holmes,” he said. If 
you can catch the man, catch him, and let me kno\f 
when you have done it.” 

“ Certainly,” said Holmes, stepping over and turn- 
ing the key in the door. “ I let you know, then, 
that I have caught him ! ” 

“What! where?” shouted Mr. Windibank, turn- 
ing white to his lips, and glancing about him like a 
rat in a trap. 

“ Oh, it won’t do — really it won’t,” said Holmes, 
suavely. “ There is no possible getting out of it, 
Mr. Windibank. It is quite too transparent, and it 
was a very bad compliment when you said that it 
was impossible for me to solve so simple a question. 
That’s right ! Sit down, and let us talk it over.” 

Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly 
face, and a glitter of moisture on his brow. “ It — 
it’s not actionable,” he stammered. 

“ I am very much afraid that it is not ; but 
between ourselves, Windibank, it was as cruel, and 
selfish, and heartless a trick in a petty way as ever 
came before me. How, let me just run over the 
course of events, and you ivill contradict me if I go 
wrong.” 

# The man sat huddled up in his chair, with his 
head sunk upon his breast, like one who is utterly 
crushed. Holmes stuck his feet up on the corner 
of the mantel-piece, and, leaning back with his 
hands in his pockets, begaji talking, rather to him- 
self, as it seemed, than to us. 

“ The man married a v oman very much older 
than himself for her money said he, “and he 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. 


225 


enjoyed the use of the money of the daughter as 
long as she lived with them. It was a considerable 
sum, for people in their position, and the loss of it 
would have made a serious difference. It was 
worth an effort to preserve it. The daughter was 
of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate and 
warm-hearted in her ways, so that it was evident 
that with her fair personal advantages, and her 
little income, she would not be allowed to remain 
single long. Now her marriage would mean, of 
course, the loss of a hundred a year, so what does 
her step-father do to prevent it ? He takes the ob- 
vious course of keeping her at home, and forbidding 
her to seek the company of people of her own age. 
But soon he found that that would not answer for- 
ever. She became restive, insisted upon her rights, 
and finally announced her positive intention of go- 
ing to a certain ball. What does her clever step- 
father do then ? He conceives an idea more credit- 
able to his head than to his heart. With the con- 
nivance and assistance of his wife, he disguised him- 
self, covered those keen eyes with tinted glasses, 
masked the face with a mustache and a pair of 
bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice into an insin- 
uating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the 
girl’s short sight, he appears as Mr. Hosmer Angel, 
and keeps off other lovers by making love himself.” 

“ It was only a joke at first,” groaned our vis- 
itor. We never thought that she would have been 
so carried away.” 

“ Very likely not. However that may be, the 
young lady was very decididly carried away, and 

IS 


226 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


having quite made up her mind that her stepfather 
was in France, the suspicion of treachery never for 
an instant entered her mind. She was flattered by 
the gentleman’s attentions, and the effect was in- 
creased by the loudly expressed admiration of her 
mother. Then Mr. Angel began to call, for it was 
obvious that the matter should be pushed as far as 
it would go, if a real effect were to be produced. 
There were meetings, and an engagement, which 
would finally secure the girl’s affections from turn- 
ing toward any one else. But the deception could 
not be kept up forever. These pretended journeys 
to France were rather cumbrous. The thing to do 
was clearly to bring the business to an end in such 
a dramatic manner that it would leave a permanent 
impression upon the young lady’s mind, and pre^ 
vent her from looking upon any other suitor for 
some time to come. Hence those vows of fidelity 
exacted upon a Testament, and hence also the allu- 
sions to a possibility of something happening on the 
very morning of the wedding. James Windibank 
wished Miss Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer 
Angel, and so uncertain as to his fate, that for ten 
years to come, at any rate, she would not listen to 
another man. As far as the church door he brought 

O 

her, and then, as he could go no further, he con- 
veniently vanished away by the old trick of step- 
ping in at one door of a four-wheeler and out at the 
other. I think that that was the chain of events, 
Mr. Windibank ! ” 

Our visitor had recovered something of his assur- 
ance while Holmes had been talking, and he rose 


A CASE OP IDENTITY. 


m 

from his chair now with a cold sneer upon his pale 
face. 

“ It may be so, or it may not, Mr. Holmes,” said 
he ; “ but if you are so very sharp you ought to be 
sharp enough to know that it is you who are break- 
ing the law now, and not me. I have done nothing 
actionable from the first, but as long as you keep 
that door locked you lay yourself open to an action 
for assault and illegal constraint.” 

“The law cannot, as you say, touch you,” said 
Holmes, unlocking and throwing open the door, 
“ yet there never was a man who deserved punish- 
ment more. If the young lady has a brother or a 
friend, he ought to lay a whip across your shoulders. 
By Jove ! ” he continued, flushing up at the sight 
of the bitter sneer upon the nian’s face, “ it is not 
part of my duties to my client,- but here’s a hunt- 
ing crop handy, and I think I shall just treat my- 
self to — ” He took two swift steps to the whip, 
but before he could grasp it there was a wild clatter 
of steps upon the stairs, the heavy hall door banged, 
and from the window we could see Mr. James 
Windibank running at the top of his speed down 
the road. 

“ There’s a cold-blooded scoundrel ! ” said Holmes 
laughing as he threw himself down into his chair 
once more. “ That fellow will rise from crime to 
crime until he does something very bad and ends 
on a gallows. The case has, in some respects, been 
not entirely devoid of interest.” 

“ I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your 
reasoning,” I remarked. 


228 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ Well, of course it was obvious from the first that 
this Mr. Hosmer Angel must have some strong ob- 
ject for his curious conduct, and it was equally clear 
that the only man who really profited by the inci- 
dent, as far as we could see, was the stepfather. Then 
the fact that the two men were never together, but 
that the one always appeared when the other was 
away, was suggestive. So were the tinted spectacles 
and the curious voice, which both hinted at a dis- 
guise, as did the bushy whiskers. My suspicions 
were all confirmed by his peculiar action in type- 
writing his signature, which, of course, inferred that 
his handwriting was so familiar to her that she would 
recognize even the smallest sample of it. You see 
all these isolated facts, together with many minor 
ones, all pointed in the same direction.” 

“ And how did j^ou verify them ? ” 

“ Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get 
corroboration. 1 knew the firm for which this man 
worked. Having taken the printed description, I 
eliminated everything from it which could be the 
result of a disguise — the whiskers, the glasses, the 
voice, and I sent it to the firm with a request that 
they would inform me whether it answered to the 
description of any of their travelers. I had already 
noticed the peculiarities of the typewriter, and 1 
wrote to the man himself at his business address, 
asking him if he would come here. As I expected, 
his reply was typewritten, and revealed the same 
trivial but characteristic defects. The same post 
brought me a letter from Westhouse & Marbank, of 
F^nchurch Street, to say that the description tallied 


A CASE OF IDENTITY. 

in every respect with that of their employ 6, James 
Windibank. Yoila tout ! ” 

“ And Miss Sutherland ? ” 

“ If I tell her she will not believe me. You may 
remember the old Persian saying, ‘ There is danger 
for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also 
for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman There 
is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much 
knowledge of the world.” 






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MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 


« Number 43 is no better, doctor,” said the head, 
warder, in a slightly reproachful accent, looking in 
round the corner of my door. 

“ Confound 43 ! ” I responded from behind the 
pages of the Australian Sketcher, 

“ And 61 says his tubes are paining him. Couldn’t 
you do anything for him ? ” 

He is a walking drug-shop,” said I. “ He has the 
whole British pharmacopoea inside him. I believe 
his tubes are as sound as yours are.” 

“ Then there’s 7 and 108, they, are chronic,” con- 
tinued the warder, glancing down a blue slip of 
paper. “ And 28 knocked off work yesterday — said 
lifting things gave him a stitch in the side. I want 
you to have a look at him, if you don’t mind, doctor. 
There’s 31, too — him that killed John Adamson in 
the Corinthian brig — he’s been carrying on awful 
in the night, shrieking and yelling, he has, and no 
stopping him either.” 

‘‘ All right. I’ll have a look at him afterward,” I 
said, tossing my paper carelessly aside, and pouring 
myself out a cup of coffee. “ Nothing else to report, 
I suppose, warder ? ” 

231 


23^ 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


The official protruded his head a little further in- 
to the room. “ Beg pardon, doctor,*' he said, in a 
confidential tone, “ but I notice as 83 has a bit of a 
cold, and it would be a good excuse for you to visit 
him and have a chat, maybe.” 

The cup of coffee was arrested half-way to my lips 
as I stared in amazement a' the man’s serious face. 

“ An excuse ? ” I said. “ An excuse ? What the 
deuce are you talking about, McPherson ? You see 
me trudging about all day at my practise, when I’m 
not looking after the prisoners, and coming back 
every night as tired as a dog, and you talk about 
finding an excuse for doing more work.” 

“ You’d like it, doctor,” said Warder McPherson, 
insinuating one of his shoulders into the room. 
“ That man’s story’s worth listening to if you could 
get him to tell it, though he’s not what you’d call 
free in his speech. Maybe you don’t know who 82 
is?” 

“ 'No, I don’t, and I don’t care either,” I answered, 
in the conviction that some local ruffian was about 
to be foisted upon me as a celebrity. 

“He’s Maloney,” said the warder, “him that 
turned Queen’s evidence after the murders at Blue- 
mansdyke.” 

“You don’t say so?”. I ejaculated, laying down 
my cup in astonishment. I had heard of this ghastly 
series of murders, and read an account of them in 
a London magazine long before setting foot in the 
colony. I remembered that the atrocities committed 
had thrown the Burke and Hare crimes completely 
into the shade, and that one of the most villainous 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 233 

of the gang had saved his own skin by betraying 
his companions. “ Are you sure ? ’ I asked. 

“ Oh, yes, it’s him right enough. J ust you draw 
him out a bit, and he’ll astonish you. He’s a man 
to know, is Maloney ; that’s to say, in moderation ; ” 
and the head grinned, bobbed, and disappeared, 
leaving me to finish my breakfast and ruminate over 
what I had heard. 

The surgeonship of an Australian prison is not 
an enviable position. It may be endurable in Mel- 
bourne or Sydney, but the little town of Perth has 
few attractions to recommend it, and those few had 
been long exhausted. The climate was detestable, 
and the societ}^ far from congenial. Sheep and cat- 
tle were the staple support of the community ; and 
their prices, breeding, and diseases the principal 
topic of conversation. How as I, being an outsider, 
possessed neither the one nor the other, and was 
utterly callous to the new “ dip ” and the “rot” 
and other kindred topics, 1 found myself in a state 
of mental isolation, and was ready to hail anything 
which might relieve the monotony of my existence. 
Maloney, the murderer, had at least some distinc- 
tiveness and individuality in his character, and might 
act as a tonic to a mind sick of the commonplaces 
of existence. I determined that I should follow the 
warder’s advice, and take the excuse for making his 
acquaintance. When, therefore, I went upon my 
usual matutinal round, I turned the lock of the door 
which bore the convict’s number upon it, and 
walked into the cell. 

The man was lying in a heap upon his rough bed 


234 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


as I entered, but, uncoiling his long limbs, he started 
up and stared at me with an insolent look of de- 
fiance on his face which augured badly for our inter- 
view. He had a pale, set face, with sandy hair and 
a steely-blue eye, with something feline in its ex- 
pression. His frame was tall and muscular, though 
there was a curious bend in his shoulders, which 
almost amounted to a deformity. An ordinary 
observer meeting him in the street might have put 
him down as a well-developed man, fairly handsome, 
and of studious habits — even in the hideous uniform 
of the rottenest convict establishment he imparted 
a certain refinement to his carriage which marked 
him out among the inferior ruffians around him. 

“I’m not on the sick-list,” he said, gruffly. 
There was something in the hard, rasping voice 
which dispelled all softer illusions, and made me 
realize that I was face to face with the man of the 
Lena Yalley and Bluemansdyke, the bloodiest bush- 
ranger that ever stuck up a farm or cut the throats 
of its occupants. 

“ I know you’re not,” I answered. “ Warder 
McPherson told me you had a cold, though, and I 
thought Pd look in and see you.” 

“ Blast Warder McPherson, and blast you, too ! ” 
yelled the convict, in a paroxysm of rage. “ Oh, 
that’s right,” he added in a quieter voice ; “ hurry 
away ; report me to the governor, do ! Get me > 
another six months or so — that’s your game.” 

“ Pm not going to report you,” I said. 

“ Eight square feet of ground,” he went on, dis- 
regarding my protest, and evidently working hinu 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 


235 


self into a fury again. ‘‘ Eight square feet, and I 
can’t have that without being talked to and stared 
at, and — oh, blast the whole crew of you ! ” and he 
raised his two clinched hands above his head and 
shook them in passionate invective. 

“ You’ve got a curious idea of hospitality,” I re- , 
marked, determined not to lose my temper, and say- 
ing almost the first thing that came to my tongue. 

To my surprise the words had an extraordinary 
effect upon him. He seemed completely staggered 
at my assuming the proposition for which he had 
been so fiercely contending — namely, that the room 
in which he stood was his own. 

“ I beg your pardon,” he said ; I didn’t mean to 
be rude. Won’t you take a seat ? ” and he motioned 
toward a rough trestle, which formed the head- 
piece of his couch. 

I sat down, rather astonished at the sudden 
change. I don’t know that I liked Maloney better 
under this new aspect. The murderer had, it is 
true, disappeared for the nonce, but there was some- 
thing in the smooth tones and obsequious man- 
ner which powerfully suggested the witness of the 
queen, who had stood up and sworn away the lives 
of his companions in crime. 

‘‘ How’s your chest ? ” I asked, putting on my 
professional air. 

“ Come, drop it, doctor — drop it ! ” he answered, 
showing a row of white teeth as he resumed his seat 
upon the side of the bed. ‘‘ It wasn’t anxiety after 
my precious health that brought you along here ; 
that story won’t wash at all. You came to have 


236 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


a look at Wolf Tone Maloney, forger, murderer^ 
Sydney -slider, ranger, and government peach. 
That’s about my figure, ain’t it ? There it is, plain 
and straight ; there’s nothing mean about me.” 

He paused as if he expected me to say something; 
but as I remained silent, he repeated once or twice, 
“ There’s nothing mean about me.” 

And why shouldn’t I ? ” he suddenly yelled, his 
eyes gleaming and his whole satanic nature reassert- 
ing itself. “ We were bound to swing, one and all, 
and they were none the worse if I saved myself by 
turning against them. Every man for himself, say 
I, and the devil take the luckiest. You haven’t a 
plug of tobacco, doctor, have you ? ” 

He tore at the piece of “ Barrett’s ” which I 
handed him, as ravenously as a wild beast. It 
seemed to have the effect of soothing his nerves, 
for he settled himself down in the bed and reassumed 
his former deprecating manner. 

‘‘You wouldn’t like it yourself, you know, doc- 
tor,” he said : “ it’s enough to make any man a little 
queer in his temper. I’m in for six months this 
time for assault, and very sorry I shall be to go out 
again, I can tell you. My mind’s at ease in here ; 
but when I’m outside, what with the government 
and what with Tattooed Tom, of Hawkesbury, 
there’s no chance of a quiet life.” 

“ Who is he? ” I asked. 

“ He’s the brother of John Grimthorpe, the same 
that was condemned on my evidence ; and an in- 
fernal scamp he was, too ! Spawn of the devil, 
both of them I This tattooed one is a murderous 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 237 

ruffian, and he swore to have my blood after that 
trial. It’s seven year ago, and he’s following me 
yet ; I know he is, though he lies low and keeps 
dark. He came up to me in Ballarat in ’75 ; you 
can see on the back of my hand here where the 
bullet clipped me. He tried again in ’76, at Port 
Philip, but I got the drop on him and wounded him 
badly. He knifed me in ’79, though, in a bar at 
Adelaide, and that made our account about level. 
He’s loafing round again now, and he’ll let daylight 
into me — unless — unless by some extraordinary 
chance some one does as much for him.” And 
Maloney gave a very ugly smile. 

“ I don’t complain of Mm so much,” he continued. 
“ Looking at it in his way, no doubt it is a sort of 
family matter that can hardly be neglected. It’s 
the government that fetches me. When I think of 
what I’ve done for this country, and then of what 
this country has done for me, it makes me fairly 
wild — clean drives me off my head. There’s no 
gratitude nor common decency left, doctor ! ” 

He brooded over his wrongs for a few minutes, 
and then proceeded to lay them before me in detail. 

“ Here’s nine men,” he said ; “ they’ve been mur- 
dering and killing for a matter of three years, and 
maybe a life a week wouldn’t more than average the 
work that they’ve done. The government catches 
them and the government tries them, but they can’t 
convict ; and why ? — because the witnesses have all 
had their throats cut, and the whole job’s been very 
neatly done. What happens then? Up comes a 
citiiien called Wolf Tone Maloney ; he says, ‘ The coun* 


238 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


try needs me, and here I am.’ And with that he gives 
his evidence, convicts the lot, and enables the beaks 
to hang them. That’s what I did. There’s nothing 
mean about me ! And now what does the country 
do in return ? Dogs me, sir, spies on me, watches 
me night and day, turns against the very man that 
worked so very hard for it. There’s something 
mean about that, anyway. I didn’t expect them to 
knight me, nor to make me colonial secretary ; but, 
damn it ! I did expect that they would let me 
alone ! ” 

'Well,” I remonstrated, “ if you choose to break 
laws and assault people, 3"ou can’t expect it to be 
looked over on account of former services.” 

‘‘ I don’t refer to my present imprisonment, sir,” 
said Maloney, with dignity. “It’s the life I’ve 
been leading since that cursed trial that takes the 
soul out of me. Just you sit there on that trestle, 
and I’ll tell you all about it ; and then look me in 
the face and tell me that I’ve been treated fair by 
the police.” 

I shall endeavor to transcribe the experience of 
the convict in his own "words, as far as I can re* 
member them, preserving his curious perversions of 
right and wrong. I can answer for the truth of 
his facts, whatever may be said for his deductions 
from them. Months afterward. Inspector H. W. 
Hann, formerly governor of the jail at Dunedin, 
showed me entries in his ledger which corroborated 
every statement. Maloney reeled the story off in 
a dull, monotonous voice, with his head sunk upon 
his breast and his hands between his knees. The 


MY FRIEND FHE MURDERER. 


239 


glitter of his serpent-like eyes was the only sign of 
the emotions which were stirred up by the recollec- 
tion cl the events which ho narrated. 

You’ve read of Bluemansdyke (he began, with 
some pride in his tone). We made it hot while it 
lasted ; but they ran us to earth at last, and a trap 
called Braxton, Avith a damned Yankee, took the lot 
of us. That was in New Zealand, of course, and they 
took us down to Dunedin, and there they were 
convicted and hanged. One and all they put up 
their hands in the doclc, and cursed me till your 
blood would have run cold to hear them — which 
was scurvy treatment, seeing that Ave had all been 
pals together ; but they Avere a blackguard lot, and 
thought only of themselves. I think it is as well 
that they were hung. 

They took me back to Dunedin Jail, and clapped 
me into the old cell. The only difference they made 
Avas, that 1 had no Avork to do and was well fed. I 
stood this for a Aveek or tAVo, until one day the 
governor was making his rounds, and I put the 
matter to him. 

“ Hoav’s this ? ” I said. ‘‘ My conditions were a 
free pardon, and you’re keeping me here against 
the laAv.” 

He gave a sort of a smile. “ Should you like very 
much to get out?” he asked. 

“ So much,” said I, “ that unless you open that 
door I’ll have an action against you for illegal de. 
Mention.” 

Ho seemed a bit astonished by my resolution. 


240 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ You’re very anxious to meet your death,” he 
said. 

“ What d’ye mean ? ” I asked. 

“ Come here, and youdl know what I mean,” he 
answered. And he led me down the passage to a 
window that overlooked the door of the prison. 
‘‘ Look at that ! ” said he. 

I looked out, and ^hero were a dozen or so rough- 
looking fellows standing outside the street, some of 
them smoking, some playing cards on the pavement. 
When they saw me they gave a yell and crowded 
round the door, shaking their fists and hooting. 

“ They wait for you, watch and watch about,” 
said the governor. “ Tliey’re the executive of the 
vigilance committee. However, since you are deter- 
mined to go, I can’t stop you.” 

“ D’ye call this a civilized land,” I cried^ “ and let 
a man be murdered in cold blood in open day- 
light?” 

When I said this the governor and the warder 
and every fool in the place grinned, as if a man’s 
life was a rare good joke. 

“ You’ve got the law on your side,” says the gov- 
ernor ; “ so we won't detain you an}^ longer. Show 
him out, warder.” 

He’d have done it, too, the black-hearted villain, 
if I hadn’t begged and prayed and offered to pay 
for my board and lodging, which is more than any 
prisoner ever did before me. He let me stay on 
those conditions ; and for three months I was caged 
up there with every larrikin in the township 
clamoring at the other side of the wall. That was 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 241 

pretty treatment for a man that had served his 
country ! 

At last, one morning up came the governor again. 

“ Well, Maloney,” he said, “ how long are you go- 
ing to honor us with your society ? ” 

1 could have put a knife into his cursed body, and 
would, too, if Ave had been alone in the bush ; but 
I had to smile, and smooth him and flatter, for I 
feared that he might have me sent out. 

“ You’re an infernal rascal,” he said ; those were 
his very Avords, to a man that had helped him all he 
knew how. “ I don’t want any rough justice here, 
though ; and I think I see my way to getting you 
out of Dunedin.” 

“ I’ll never forget you, governor,” said I ; and, by 
God ! I never Avill. 

“ I don’t Avant your thanks nor your gratitude,” 
he answered ; “ it’s not for your sake that I do it, 
but simply to keep order in the town. There’s a 
steamer starts from the West Quay to Melbourne 
to-morroAV, and we’ll get you aboard it. She is ad- 
vertised at five in the morning, so have yourself in 
readiness.” 

I packed up the few things I had, and was smug- 
gled out by a back door, just before day-break. I 
hurried doA\m, took my ticket under the name of 
Isaac Smith, and got safely aboard the Melbourne 
boat. I remember hearing her screw grinding into 
the AA^ater as the warps were cast loose, and looking 
back at the lights of Dunedin as I leaned upon the 
buhvarks, with the pleasant thought that I was 
leaving them behind me forever. It seemed to me 


THE SIGN OF THE POUR. 


m 

that a new world was before me, and that all 
troubles had been cast off. I went down below and 
had some coffee, and came up again feeling better 
than I had done since the morning that I woke to 
find that cursed Irishman that took me standing 
over me with a six-shooter. 

Day had dawned by that time, and we were 
steaming along by the coast, well out of sight of 
Dunedin. I loafed about for a couple of hours, and 
when the sun got well up some of the other passen- 
gers came on deck and joined me. One of them, a 
little perky sort of fellow, took a good long look at 
me, and then came over and began talking. 

“ Mining, I suppose ? ” says he. 

“ Yes,” I says. 

“ Made your pile ? ” he asks. 

“ Pretty fair,” says I. 

“ I was at it myself,” he says ; “ I worked at the 
Nelson fields for three months, and spent all I made 
in buying a salted claim which busted up the second 
day. I went at it again, though, and struck it rich ; 
but when the gold wagon was going down to the 
settlements, it was stuck up by those cursed rangers, 
and not a red cent left.” 

“ That was a bad job,” I says. 

“ Broke me — ruined me clean. Never mind, I’ve 
seen them all hanged for it ; that makes it easier to 
bear. There’s only one left — the villain that gave 
the evidence. I’d die happy if I could come across 
him. There are two things I have to do if I meet 
him.” 

“ What’s that ? ” says I, carelessly. 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 


243 

“ I’ve got to ask him where the money lies — they 
never had time to make away with it, and it’s Goclied 
somewhere in the mountains — and then I’ve got to 
stretch his neck for him, and send his soul down to 
join the men that he betrayed.” 

It seemed to me that I knew something about that 
cache ^ and I felt like laughing ; but he was watching 
me, and it struck me that he had a nasty, vindictive 
kind of mind. 

“ I’m going up on the bridge,” I said, for he was 
not a man whose acquaintance I cared much about 
making. 

He wouldn’t hear of my leaving him, though. 
« 'W’e’re both miners,” he says, “and we’re pals for 
the voyage. Come down to the bar. I’m not too 
poor to shout.” 

I couldn’t refuse him well, and we wmnt down 
together ; and that was the beginning of the trouble. 
What harm was I doing any one on the ship ? All 
I asked for was a quiet life, leaving others alone and 
getting left alone myself. Ho man could ask fairer 
than that. And now just you listen to what came 
of it. 

We were passing the front of the ladies’ cabin, on 
our way to the saloon, when out comes a servant 
lass — a freckled currency she-devil — with a baby in 
her arms. We were brushing past her, w^hen she 
gave a scream like a railway whistle, and nearly 
dropped the kid. IVIy nerves gave a sort of a jump 
when I heard that scream, but I turned and begged 
her pardon, letting on that I thought I might have 
trod on her foot. I knew the game was up, though, 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


when I saw her white face, aud her leaning against 
the door and pointing. 

“ It’s him ! ” she cried ; it’s him ! I saw him in 
the court-house. Oh, don’ : let him hurt the baby ! ” 

“ Who is it ? ” asked the steward and half a dozen 
others in a breath. 

“ It’s him — Maloney — Idaloney, the murderer — 
oh, take him away — take 1dm away ! ” 

I don’t rightly remem b(. r what happened just at 
that moment. The furnit ireand me seemed to get 
kind of mixed, and there Y as cursing, and smashing, 
and some one shouting for his gold, and a general 
stamping round. When I got steadied a bit, I found 
somebody’s hand in my mouth. From what I 
gathered afterward, I concluded that it belonged to 
that same little man with the vicious way of talking. 
He got some of it out again, but that was because 
the others were choking me. A poor chap can get 
no fair play in this world when once he is down — 
still, I think he wiU remember me till the day of his 
death — longer, I hope. 

They dragged me out on to the poop and held a 
damned court-martial — on me, mind you ; me, that 
had thrown over my pals in order to serve them. 
What were they to do with me % Some said this, 
some said that ; but it ended by the captain decid- 
ing to send me ashore. The ship stopped, they 
lowered a boat, and I was hoisted in, the whole gang 
of them hooting at me from over the bulwarks. I 
saw the man I spoke of tying up his hand, though, 
and I felt that things might be worse. 

I changed my opinion before we got to the land 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 


245 


1 had reckoned on the shore being deserted, and 
that I might make my way inland ; but the ship 
had stopped too near the Heads, and a dozen beach- 
combers and such like had come down to the water’s 
edge and were string at us, wondering what the 
boat was after. ‘MYhen we got to the edge of the 
surf the cockswain hailed them, and after singing 
out who I was, he and his men threw me into the 
water. You may well look surprised — neck and 
crop into ten feet of water, with sharks as thick as 
green parrots in the bush, and I heard them laugh- 
ing as I floundered to the shore. 

I soon saw it was a worse job than ever. As 1 
came scrambling out through the weeds, I was col- 
lared by a big chap with a velveteen coat, and half 
a dozen others got round me and held me fast. 
Most of them looked simple fellows enough, and I 
was not afraid of them ; but there was one in a cab- 
bage-tree hat that had a very nasty expression on 
his face, and the big man seemed to be chummy 
with him. 

They dragged me up the beach, and then they 
let go their hold of me and stood round in a circle. 

“ Well, mate,” says the man with the hat, “ we’ve 
been looking out for you some time in these parts.” 

“ And very good of you, too,” I answers. 

“None of your jaw,” says he. “Come, boys, 
what shall it be — hanging, drowning, or shooting? 
Look sharp ! ” 

This looked a bit too like business. “No, you 
don’t ! ” I said. “ I’ve got government protection, 
and it’ll be murder.” 


m 


THE SIGN OP THE POUR. 


“ That’s what they call it,” answered the one in 
the velveteen coat, as cheery as a piping crow. 

“ And you’re going to murder me for being a 
ranger ? ” 

“Hanger be damned 1” said the man. “We’re 
going to hang you for peaching against your pals ; 
and that’s an end of the palaver.” 

The}’’ slung a rope round my neck and dragged 
me up to the edge of the bush. There "were some 
big she-oaks and blue-gums, and they pitched on one 
of these for the wicked deed. They ran the rope 
over a branch, tied my hands, and told me to say 
my prayers. It seemed as if it was all up ; but 
Providence interfered to save me. It sounds nice 
enough sitting here and telling about it, sir ; but it 
was sick work to stand with nothing but the beach 
in front of you, and the long white line of surf, with 
the steamer in the distance, and a set of bloody- 
minded villains round you thirsting for your life. ^ 

I never thought I’d owe anything good to the'^ 
police ; but they saved me that time. A troop of 
them were riding from Hawkes Point Station to 
Dunedin, and hearing that something was up, they 
came down through the bush and interrupted the 
proceedings. I’ve heard some bands in my time, 
doctor, but I never heard music like the jingle of 
those traps’ spurs and harness as they galloped out on 
to the open. They tried to hang me even then, but 
the police were too quick for them ; and the man with 
the hat got one over the head with the flat of a sword, 

I was clapped on to a horse, and before evening 1 
found myself in my old quarters in the city jail. 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 


m 

The governor wasn’t to be done, though. He 
was determined to get rid of me, and I was equally 
anxious to see the last of him. He waited a week 
or so until the excitement had begun to die away, 
and then he smuggled me aboard a three-masted 
schooner bound to Sydney with tallow and hides. 

We got far away to sea without a hitch, and 
things began to look a bit more rosy. I made sure 
that I had seen the last of the prison, anyway. The 
crew had a sort of an idea who I was, and if there’d 
been any rough weather, they’d have hove me over- 
board, like enough ; for they were a rough, igno- 
rant lot, and had a notion that I brought bad luck to 
the ship. We had a good passage, however, and I 
was landed safe and sound upon Sydney Quay. 

Now just you listen to what happened next. 
You’d have thought they would have been sick of 
ill-using me and following me by this time — wouldn’t 
you, now? Well, just you listen. It seems that a 
cursed steamer started from Dunedin to Sydney on 
the very day we left, and got in before us, bringing 
news that I was coming. Blessed if they hadn’t 
called a meeting — a regular mass-meeting — at the 
docks to discuss about it, and I marched right into 
it when I landed. They didn’t take long about 
arresting me, and I listened to all the speeches and 
resolutions. If I’d been a prince there couldn't have 
been more excitement. The end of all was that they 
agreed that it wasn’t right that New Zealand should 
be allowed to foist her criminals upon her neighbors, 
and that I was to be sent back again by the next 
boat. So they posted me off again as if I was a 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


m 

damned parcel ; and after another eight-hundred- 
mile journey I found myself back for the third time 
moving in the place that I started from. 

By this time I had begun to think that I was going 
to spend the rest of my existence traveling about 
from one port to another. Every man’s hand seemed 
turned against me, and there was no peace or quiet 
in any direction. I was about sick of it by the time 
I had come back ; and if I could have taken to tke 
bush I’d have done it, and chanced it with my old 
pals. They were too quick for me, though, and kept 
me under lock and key ; but I managed, in spite of 
them, to negotiate that cache I told you of, and 
sewed the gold up in my belt. I spent another 
month in jail, and then they slipped me aboard a 
bark that was bound for England. 

This time the crew never knew who I was, but 
the captain had a pretty good idea, though he didn’t 
let on to me that he had any suspicions. I guessed 
from the first that the man was a villain. We had 
a fair passage, except a gale or two off the Cape ; 
and I began to feel like a free bian when I saw the 
blue loom of the old country, and the saucy little 
pilot-boat from Falmouth dancing toward us over 
the waves. We ran down the Channel, and before 
we reached Gravesend I had agreed with the pilot 
that he should take me ashore with him when he 
left. It was at this time that the captain showed 
me that I was right in thinking him a meddling, 
disagreeable man. I got my things packed, such as 
they were, and left him talking earnestly to the 
pilot, while I went below for my breakfast. When 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 249 

I came up again we were fairly into the mouth of 
the river, and the boat in whicli I was to have gone 
ashore had left us. The skipper said the pilot had 
forgotten me ; but that was too thin, and I began 
to fear that all my old troubles were going to com- 
mence once more. 

It was not long before my suspicions were con- 
firmed. A boat darted out from the side of the 
river, and a tall cove with a long black beard came 
aboard. I heard him ask the mate whether they 
didn’t need a mud-pilot to take them up in the 
reaches, but it seemed to me that he was a man 
who would know a deal more about handcuffs than 
lie did about steering, so I kept away from him. 
He came across the deck, however, and made some 
remark to me, taking a good look at rue the while, 
I don’t like inquisitive people at any time, but an 
inquisitive stranger with glue about the roots of 
his beard is the worst of all to stand, especially 
under the circumstances. I began to feel that it 
was time for me to go. 

I soon got a chance, and made good use of it. A 
big collier came athwart the bows of our steamer, 
and we had to slacken down to dead slow. There 
was a barge astern, and I slipped down by a rope 
and was into the barge before any one missed me. 
Of course I had to leave my luggage behind me, 
but I had the belt with the nuggets round my 
waist, and the chance of shaking the police off mv 
track was worth more than a couple of boxes, it 
was clear to me now that the pilot had been a 
traitor, a§ well as the captain, and bad set the 


250 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


detectives after me. I often wish I could drop 
across those two men again. 

I hung about the barge all day as she drifted 
down the stream. There was one man in her, but 
she was a big, ugly craft, and his hands were too 
full for much looking about. Toward evening, 
when it got a bit dusky, I struck out for the shore, 
and found myself in a sort of marsh place, a good 
many miles to the east of London. I was soaking 
wet and half dead with hunger, but I trudged into 
the town, got a new rig-out at a slop-shop, and 
after having some supper, engaged a bed at the 
quietest lodgings I could find. 

I woke pretty early — a habit you pick up in the 
bush — and lucky for me that I did so. The very 
first thing I saw when I took a look through a chink 
in the shutter was one of these infernal policemen, 
standing right opposite and staring up at the 
windows. He hadn’t epaulets nor a sword, like 
our traps, but for all that there was a sort of 
family likeness, and the same busybody expression. 
Whether they followed me all the time, or whether 
the woman that let me the bed didn’t like the 
looks of me, is more than I have ever been able to 
find out. He came across as I was watching him, 
and noted down the address of the house in a book. 
I was afraid that he was going to ring at the bell, 
but I suppose his orders were simply to keep an eye 
on me, for after another good look at the windows 
he moved on down the street. 

I saw that my only chance was to act at once. I 
threw on my clothes, opened the window softly, 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER, 


251 


and, after making sure that there was nobody about, 
dropped out onto the ground and made off as hard 
as I could run. I traveled a matter of two or three 
miles, when my wind gave out ; and as I saw a big 
building with people going in and out, I went in 
too, and found that it was a railway station. A 
train was just going off for Dover to meet the French 
boat, so I took a ticket and jumped into a third- 
class carriage. 

There were a couple of other chaps in the car- 
riage, innocent-looking young beggars, both of them. 
They began speaking about this and that, while I 
sat quiet in the corner and listened. Then they 
started on England and foreign countries, and such 
like. Look ye now, doctor, this is a fact. One of 
them begins jawing about the justice of England’s 
laws. “ It’s all fair and above-board,” says he ; 
“ there ain’t any secret police, nor spying, like they 
have abroad,” and a lot more of the same sort of 
wash. Father rough on me, wasn’t it, listening to 
the damned young fool, with the police following 
me about like my shadow ? 

I got to Paris right enough, and there I changed 
some of my gold, and for a few days I imagined I’d 
shaken them off, and began to think of settling down 
for a bit of rest. I needed it by that time, for I was 
looking more like a ghost than a man. You’ve 
never had the police after you, I suppose ? Well, you 
needn’t look offended, I didn’t mean any harm. If 
ever you had you’d know that it wastes a man away 
like a sheep with the rot. 

I went to the opera one night and took a box, for 


252 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


1 was very flush. I was coming out between the 
acts when I met a fellow lounging along in the pas- 
sage. The light fell on his face, and I saw that it 
was the mud-pilot that had boarded us in the Thames. 
His beard was gone, but 1 recognized the man at 
a glance, for I’ve a good memory for faces. 

I tell you, doctor, I felt desperate for a moment. I 
could have knifed him if we had been alone, but he 
knew me well enough never to give me the chance. 
It was more than I could stand any longer, so I 
went right up to him and drew him aside, where 
we’ d be free from all the loungers and theater-goers. 

‘‘How long are you going to keep it up?” I 
asked him. 

He seemed a bit flustered for a moment, but then 
he saw there was no use beating about the bush, so 
he answered straight : 

“ Until you go back to Australia,” he said. 

“ Don’t you know,” I said, “ that I have served 
the government and got a free pardon ? ” 

He grinned all over his ugly face when I said this. 

“ We know all about you, Maloney,” he answered. 
“If you want a quiet life, just you go back where 
you came from. If you stay here, you’re a marked 
man ; and when you are found tripping it’ll be a 
lifer for you, at the least. Free trade’s a fine thing 
but the market’s too full of men like you for us to 
need to import any.” 

It seemed to me that there was something in what 
he said, though be had a nasty way of putting it. 
For some days back I’d been feeling a sort of home 
sick. The ways of the people weren’t my ways. They 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 


253 


stared at me in the street ; and if I dropped into a 
bar, they’d stop talking and edge away a bit, as if I 
was a wild beast. I’d sooner have had a pint of old 
Stringybark, too, than a bucketful of their rot-gut 
liquors. There was too much damned propriety. 
What was the use of having money if you couldn’t 
dress as you liked, nor bust in properly ? There was 
no sympathy for a man if he shot about a little when 
he was half-over. I’ve seen a man dropped at 'Nel- 
son many a time with less row than they’d make 
over a broken window-pane. The thing was slow, 
and I was sick of it. 

“ You want me to go back? ” I said. 

“ I’ve my order to stick fast to you until you do,” 
he answered. 

“ Well,” I said, “ I don’t care if I do. All I bar- 
gain is that you keep your mouth shut and don’t let 
on who I am, so that I may have a fair start when I 
get there.” 

He agreed to this, and we went over to South- 
ampton the very next day, where he saw me safely 
off once more. I took a passage round to Adelaide, 
where no one was likely to know me ; and there I 
settled, right under the nose of the police. I’d been 
there ever since, leading a quiet life,’but for little diffi- 
culties like the one I’m in for now, and for that devil, 
Tattooed Tom, of Hawkesbury. I don’t know what 
made me tell you all this, doctor, unless it is that 
being lonely makes a man inclined to jaw when he 
gets a chance. Just you take warning from me, 
though. Never put yourself out to serve your coun- 
try ; for your country will do precious little for you. 


254 


THE SIGN OF THE FOGR. 


Just you let them look after their own affairs ; and 
if they find difficulty in hanging a set of scoundrels, 
never mind chipping in, but let them alone to do as 
best they can. Maybe they’ll remember how they 
treated me after I’m dead, and be sorry for neglect- 
ing me. I was rude to you when you came in, and 
swore a trifle promiscuous : but don’t you mind me, 
it’s only my way. You’ll allow, though, that I have 
cause to be a bit touchy now and again when 1 think 
of all that’s passed. You’re not going, are you? 
Well, if you roust, you must ; but I hope you will 
look me up at odd times when you are going your 
rounds. Oh, I say, you’ve left the balance of that 
cake of tobacco behind you, haven’t you ? No : it’s 
in your pocket — that’s all right. Thank ye doctor, 
you’re a good sort, and as quick at a hint as any 
man I’ve met. 

A couple of months after narrating his experi- 
ences, Wolf Tone Maloney finished his term, and 
was released. For a long time I neither saw him 
nor heard of him, and he had almost slipped from 
my memory, until I was reminded, in a somewhat 
tragic manner, of his existence. I had been attend- 
ing a patient some distance off in the country, and 
was riding back, guiding my tired horse among 
the boulders which strewed the pathway, and en- 
deavoring to see my way through the gathering 
darkness, when I came suddenly upon a little way- 
side inn. As I walked my horse up toward the door, 
intending to make sure of my bearings before pro- 
ceeding further, I heard the sound of a violent alter- 
cation within the little bar. There seemed to be 


MY FRIEND THE MURDERER. 


255 

a chorus of expostulation or remonstrance, above 
which two powerful voices rang out loud and 
angry. As I listened, there was a momentary hush, 
two pistol shots sounded almost simultaneous!}^, 
and with a crash the door burst open and a pair of 
dark figures staggered out into the moonlight. They 
struggled for a moment in a deadly wrestle, and 
then went down together among the loose stones. 
I had sprung off my horse, and, with the help of 
half a dozen rough fellows from the bar, dragged 
them away from one another. 

A glance was sufficient to convince me that one 
of them was dying fast. He was a thick-set burly 
fellow, with a determined cast of countenance. The 
blood was welling from a deep stab in his throat, 
and it was evident that an important artery had 
been divided. I turned away from him in despair, 
and walked over to where his antagonist was lying. 
He was shot through the lungs, but managed to 
raise himself up on his hand as I approached, and 
peered anxiously up into my face. To my surprise, 
I saw before me the haggard features and flaxen 
hair of my prison acquaintance, Maloney. 

‘‘ Ah, doctor ! ” he said, recognizing me. “ How 
is he? Will he die?” 

He asked the question so earnestly that I im- 
agined he had softened at the last moment, and 
feared to leave the world with another homicide 
upiin his conscience. Truth, however, compeHed 
me to shake my head mournfully, and to intimate 
tb t the wound would prove a mortal one. 

Maloney gave a wild cry of triumph, which 


256 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


brought the blood welling out from between his' 
lips. “ Here, boys,” he gasped to the little group 
around him. “ There’s money in my inside pocket. 
Damn the expense ! Drinks round. There’s noth, 
ing mean about me. I’d drink with you, but I’nu 
going. Give the doc my share, for he’s as good — ” 
Here his head fell back with a thud, his eye glazed, 
and the soul of Wolf Tone Maloney, forger, con- 
vict, ranger, murderer, and government peachy 
drifted away into the Great Unknown. 

I cannot conclude without borrowing the account 
of the fatal quarrel which appeared in the columns 
of the West Australimi Sentinel, The curious will 
find it in the issue of October 4, 1881 : 

“ Fatal Affray. — W. T. Maloney, a >ell-known 
citizen of Hew Montrose, and proprietor of the 
Yellow Boy gambling saloon, has met with his 
death under rather pain 'ul circumstances. Mr. 
Maloney was a man who had led a checkered exist- 
ence, and whose past history is replete with in- 
terest. Some of our readers may recall the Lena 
Valley murders, in which he figured as the principal 
criminal. It is conjectured that during the seven 
months that he owned a bar in that region, from 
twenty to thirty travelers were hocussed and made 
away with. He succeeded, however, in evading the 
vigilance of the ofiicers of the law, and allied him- 
self with the bushrangers of Bluemansdyke, who^e 
heroic capture and subsequent execution are mattens 
of history. Maloney extricated himself from the fat’d 


MY FRIEND THE MURDEREa 


257 


whicL awaited him by ;.urniiig Queen’s .evidence. 
He afterward visited Europe, but returned to West 
Australia, where he has long played a prominent 
part in local matters. On Friday evening he en- 
countered an old enemy, Thomas Grimthorpe, com- 
monly known as Tattooed Tom, of Hawkesbury. 
Shots were exchanged, and both were badly 
wounded, only surviving a few minutes. Mr. Ma- 
loney had the reputation of being not only the 
most wholesale murderer that ever lived, but also 
of having a finish and attention to detail in matters 
of evidence which has been unapproached by any 
European criminal, transit gloria mv/ndi / ” 


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4 





THE RING OF THOTH. 


Mk. John Yansittart Smith, F.R.S., of 147- A 
Gower Street, was a man whose energy of purpose 
and clearness of thought might have placed him in 
the very first rank of scientific observers. He was 
the victim, however, of a universal ambition which 
prompted him to aim at distinction in many sub- 
jects rather than pre-eminence in one. In his early 
days he had shown an aptitude for zoology and for 
botany which caused his friends to look upon him 
as a second Darwin, but when a professorship was 
almost within his reach, he had suddenly discon- 
tinued his studies and turned his whole attention to 
chemistry. Here his researches upon the spectra 
of the metals had won him his fellowship in the 
Royal Society; but again he played the coquette 
with his subject, and after a year’s absence from 
the laboratory he joined the Oriental Society, and 
delivered a paper on the Hieroglyphic and Demotic 
inscriptions of El Kab, thus giving a crowning ex- 
ample both of the versatility and of the inconstancy 
of his talents. 

The most fickle of wooers, however, is apt to be 
caught at last, and so it was with John Yansittart 

250 


260 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Smith. The more he burrowed his way into Egypt- 
ology the more impressed he became by the vast 
field which it opened to the inquirer, and by the 
extreme importance of a subject which promised to 
throw a light upon the first germs of human civiliza- 
tion and the origin of the greater part of our arts 
and sciences. So struck was Mr. Smith that he 
straightway married an Egyptological young lady 
who had written upon the sixth dynasty, and having 
thus secured a sound basis of operations, he set him- 
self to collect materials for a work which should 
unite the research of T epsiiis and the ingenuity of 
Champollion. The preparation of this magnum opus 
entailed many hurried visits to the magnificent 
Egyptian collections of the Louvre, upon the last of 
which, no longer ago than the middle of last Octo- 
ber, he became involved in a most strange and note- 
worthy adventure. 

The trains had been slow and the Channel had 
been rough, so that the student arrived in Paris in 
a somewhat befogged and feverish condition. On 
reaching the Hotel de France, in the Eue Lafitte, 
he had thrown himself upon a sofa for a couple of 
hours, but finding that he was unable to sleep, he 
determined, in spite of his fatigue, to make his way 
to the Louvre, settle the point which he had come 
to decide, and take the evening train back to Dieppe. 
Having come to this conclusion, he donned his great- 
coat, for it was a raw, rainy day, and made his way 
across the Boulevard des Italiens and down the Ave- 
nue de r Opera. Once in the Louvre he was on famil- 
iar ground, and he speedily made his way to the 


THE RING OP THOTH. 261 


collection of papyri which it was his intention to 
consult. 

t/The warmest admirers of John Yansittart Smith^ 


could hardly claim for him that he was a handsome 
man. His high-beaked nose and prominent chin had 
something of the same acute and incisive character 
which distinguished his intellect. He held his head 
in a bird-like fashion, and bird-like, too, was the peck- 
ing motion with which, in conversation, he threw 
out his objections and retorts. As he stood, with 
the high collar of his great-coat raised to his ears, 
he might have seen from the reflection in the glass 
case before him that his appearance was a singular 
one. Yet it came upon him as a sudden jar when 
an English voice behind him exclaimed in very audi- 
ble tones, “ What a queer-looking mortal ! ” 

The student had a large amount of petty vanity 
in his composition which manifested itself by an 
ostentatious and overdone disregard of all personal 
considerations. He straightened his lips and looked 
rigidly at the roll of papyrus, while his heart filled 
with bitterness against the whole race of traveling 
Britons. 

‘‘ Yes,” said another voice, ‘‘ he really is an ex- 
traordinary fellow.” 

“ Do you know,” said the first speaker, “ one could 
almost believe that by the continual contemplation 
of mummies the chap has become half a mummy 
himself ? ” 

“ He has certainly an Egyptian cast of counte- 
nance,” said the other. 

John Yansittart Smith spun round upon his heel 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


262 

with the intention of shaming his countrymen by « 
corrosive remark or two. To his surprise and relief, 
the two young fellows who had been conversing had 
their shoulders turned toward him, and were gazing 
at one of the Louvre attendants who was polishing 
some brass-work at the other side of the room. 

“Carter will be waiting for us at the Palais 
Koyal,” said one tourist to the other, glancing at 
his watch, and they clattered away, leaving the stu- 
dent to his labors. 

“ I wonder what these chatterers call an Egyptian 
cast of countenance,” thought John Yansittart 
Smith, and he moved his position slightly in order 
to catch a glimpse of the man’s face. He started 
as his eyes fell upon it. It was indeed the very face 
with which his studies had made him familiar. The 
regular statuesque features, broad brow, well-rounded 
chin, and dusky complexion were the exact counter- 
part of the innumerable statues, mummy cases, and 
pictures which adorned the walls of the apartment. 
The thing was beyond all coincidence. The man 
must be an Egyptian. The national angularity 
of the shoulders and narrowness of the hips were 
alone sufficient to identify him. 

John Yansittart Smith shuffied toward the atten- 
dant with some intention of addressing him. He 
was not light of touch in conversation, and found 
it difficult to strike the happy mean between the 
brusqueness of the superior and the geniality of the 
equal. As he came nearer, the man presented his 
side face to him, but kept his gaze still bent upon 
his work. Yansittart Smith, fixing his eyes upon 


THE RING OP THOTH. 


263 


the fellow’s skin, was conscious of a sudden impres- 
sion that there was something inhuman and preter- 
natural about its appearance. Over the temple and 
cheek-bone it was as glazed and as shiny as varnished 
parchment. There was no suggestion of pores. 
One could not fancy a drop of moisture upon that 
arid surface. From brow to chin, however, it was 
cross-hatched by a million delicate wrinkles which 
shot and interlaced as though Nature in some Maori 
mood had tried how wild and intricate a pattern 
she could devise. 

“ Oh est la collection de Memphis ? ” asked the stu- 
dent, with the awkward air of a man who is de- 
vising a question merely for the purpose of open- 
ing a conversation. 

“ C’est la,” replied the man, brusquely, nodding 
his head at the other side of the room. 

‘‘Yous etes un Egyptien, n’est-ce pas?” asked 
the Englishman. 

The attendant looked up and turned his strange, 
dark eyes upon his questioner. They were vitreous, 
with a misty, dry shininess, such as Smith had never 
seen in a human head before. As he gazed into 
them he saw some strong emotion gather in their 
depths, which rose and deepened until it broke into a 
look of something akin both to horror and to hatred. 

“Non, monsieur; je suis Fran9ais.” The man 
turned abruptly and bent low over his polishing. 
The student gazed at him for a moment in astonish- 
ment, and then turning to a chair in a retired cor- 
ner behind one of the doors, he proceeded to make 
notes of his researches among the papyri. His 


264 


THE SIGN OP THE POtJR. 


thoughts, however, refused to return into thei* 
natural groove. They would run upon the enigmat 
ical attendant with the sphinx-like face and the 
parchment skin. 

“Where have I seen such eyes?” said Yansittart 
Smith to himself. “ There is something saurian 
about them, something reptilian. There’s the mem- 
brana nictitans of the snakes,” he mused, bethink- 
ing himself of his zoological studies. “ It gives a 
shiny effect. But there was something more here. 
There was a sense of power, of wisdom — so I read 
them — and of weariness, utter weariness, and inef* 
fable despair. It may be all imagination, but I 
never had so strong an impression. By Jove, I must 
have another look at them ! ” He rose and paced 
round the Egyptian rooms, but the man who had 
excited his curiosity had disappeared. 

The student sat down again in his quiet corner, 
and continued to work at his notes. He had gained 
the information which he required from the papyri ; 
and it only remained to write it down while it was 
still fresh in his memory. For a time his pencil 
traveled rapidly over the paper, but soon the lines 
became less level, the words more blurred, and 
finally the pencil tinkled down upon the fioor, and 
the head of the student dropped heavily forward 
upon his chest. Tired out by his journey, he slept 
so soundly in his lonely post behind the door that 
neither the clanking civil guard, nor the footsteps 
of sightseers, nor even the loud, hoarse bell which 
gives the signal for closing, were sufficient to arouse 
him. 


THE RING OF TROTH. 


265 


Twilight deepened into darkness, the bustle from 
the Rue de Rivoli waxed and then waned, distant 
Notre Dame clanged out the hour of midnight, and 
still the dark and lonely figure sat silently in the 
shadow. It was not until close upon one in the 
morning that, with a sudden gasp and an intaking 
of the breath, Yansittart Smith returned to con- 
sciousness. For a moment it flashed upon him that 
he had dropped asleep in his study-chair at home. 
The moon was shining fitfully through the unshut- 
tered window, however, and, as his eye ran along the 
lines of mummies and the endless array of polished 
cases, he remembered clearly where he was and how 
he came there. The student was not a nervous 
man. He possessed that love of a novel situation 
which is peculiar to his race. Stretching out his 
cramped limbs, he looked at his watch, and burst 
into a chuckle as he observed the hour. The episode 
would make an admirable anecdote to be introduced 
into his next paper as a relief to the graver and 
heavier speculations. He was a little cold, but 
wide awake and much refreshed. It was no wonder 
that the guardians had overlooked him, for the door 
threw its heavy black shadow right across him. 

The complete silence was impressive. Neither out- 
side nor inside was there a creak or a murmur. He 
was alone with the dead men of a dead civilization. 
What though the outer city reeked of the garish 
nineteenth century ? In all this chamber there was 
scarce an article, from the shriveled ear of wheat to 
the pigment box of the painter, which had not held 
^ts own against four thousand years. J Here were the 


266 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


flotsam and jetsam washed up by the great ocean 
of time from that far-off empire. From stately 
Thebes, from lordly Luxor, from the great tem- 
ples of Heliopolis, from a hundred rifled tombs, 
these relics had been brought. The student glanced 
round, at the long-silent figures who flickered 
vaguely up through the gloom, at the busy toilers 
who were now so restful, and he fell into a reverent 
and thoughtful mood. An unwonted sense of his 
own youth and insignificance came over him. 
Leaning back in his chair, he gazed dreamily down 
the long vista of rooms, all silvery with the moon- 
shine, which extend through the whole wing of the 
widespread building. His eyes fell upon the yellow 
glare of a distant lamp. 

John Yansittart Smith sat up on his chair with 
his nerves all on edge. The light was advancing 
slowly toward him, pausing from time to time, and 
then coming jerkily onward. The bearer moved 
noiselessly. In the utter silence there was no 
suspicion of the pat of a footfall. An idea of rob- 
bers entered the Englishman’s head. He snuggled 
up further into the corner. The light was two 
rooms off. How it was in the next chamber, and 
still there was no sound. With something approach- 
ing to a thrill of fear, the student observed a face, 
floating in the air as it were, behind the flare of the 
lamp. The figure was wrapped in shadow, but the 
light fell full upon the strange, eager face. There was 
no mistaking the metallic, glistening eyes and the 
cadaverous skin. It was the attendant with whom 
he had conversed. 


THE RING OF THOTH. 


267 

Yansittart Smith’s first impulse was to come for- 
ward and address him. A few words of explana- 
tion would set the matter clear, and lead doubtless 
to his being conducted to some side door from which 
he might make his way to his hotel. As the man 
entered the chamber, however, there was something 
so stealthy in his movements, and so furtive in his 
expression, that the Englishman altered his inten- 
tion. This was clearly no ordinary official walking 
the rounds. The fellow wore felt-soled slippers, 
stepped with a rising chest, and glanced quickly 
from left to right, while his hurried, gasping breath- 
ing thrilled the flame of his lamp. Yansittart 
Smith crouched silently back into the corner and 
watched him keenly, convinced that his errand was 
one of secret and probably sinister import. 

There was no hesitation in the other's movements. 
He stepped lightly and swiftly across to one of the 
great cases, and, drawing a key from his pocket, he 
unlocked it. From the upper shelf he pulled down 
a mummy, which he bore away with him, and laid 
it with much care and solicitude upon the ground. 
By it he placed his lamp, and then squatting down 
beside it in Eastern fashion, he began with long, 
quivering fingers to undo the cere-cloths and band- 
ages which girt it round. As the crackling rolls of 
linen peeled off one after the other, a strong aroma- 
tic odor filled the chamber, and fragments of scented 
wood and of spices spattered down upon the marble 
floor. 

It was clear to John Yansittart Smith that this 
mummy had never been unswathed before. The 


268 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


operation interested him keenly. He thrilled all 
over with curiosity, and his bird-like head protruded 
further and further from behind the door. When, 
however, the last roll had been removed from the 
four-thousand-year-old head, it was all that he could 
do to stifle an outcry of amazement. First, a cas- 
cade of long, black, glossy tresses poured over the 
workman’s hands and arms. A second turn of the 
bandage revealed a low white forehead, with a pair 
of delicately arched eyebrows. A third uncovered 
a pair of bright, deeply fringed eyes, and a straight, 
well-cut nose, while a fourth and last showed a 
sweet, full, sensitive mouth, and a beautifully curved 
chin. The whole face was one of extraordinary 
loveliness, save for the one blemish that in 
the center of the forehead there was a single 
irregular, coffee-colored splotch. It was a tri- 
umph of the embalmer’s art. Yansittart Smith’s 
eyes grew larger and larger as he gazed upon 
it, and he chirruped in his throat with satis- 
faction. 

Its effect upon the Egyptologist was as nothing, 
however, compared with that which it produced 
upon the strange attendant. He threw his hands 
up into the air, burst into a harsh clatter of words, 
and then, hurling himself down upon the ground 
beside the mummy, he threw his arms round her, 
and kissed her repeatedly upon the lips and brow. 
“ Ma petite ! ” he groaned in French. “ Ma pauvre 
petite ! ” His voice broke with emotion, and his 
innumerable wrinkles quivered and writhed, but the 
student observed in the lamp-light that his shining 


THE RING OF THOTH. 


269 


eyes were still as dry and tearless as two beads of 
steel. For some minutes he lay, with a twitching 
face, crooning and moaning over the beautiful head. 
Then he broke into a sudden smile, said some words 
in an unknown tongue, and sprung to his feet with 
the vigorous air of one who has braced himself for 
an effort. 

In the center of the room there was a large cir- 
cular case which contained, as the student had fre- 
quently remarked, a magnificent collection of early 
Egyptian rings and precious stones. To this the 
attendant strode, and, unlocking it, he threw it open. 
On the ledge at the side he placed his lamp, and 
beside it a small earthenware jar which he had 
drawn from his pocket. He then took a handful of 
rings from the case, and with a most serious and 
anxious face he proceeded to smear each in turn 
with some liquid substance from the earthen pot, 
holding them to the light as he did so. He was 
clearly disappointed with the first lot, for he threw 
them petulantly back into the case, and drew out 
some more. One of these, a massive ring with a 
large crystal set in it, he seized and eagerly tested 
with the contents of the jar. Instantly he uttered 
a cry of joy, and threw out his arms in a wild ges- 
ture which upset the pot and sent the liquid stream- 
ins: across the floor to the verv feet of the English- 
man. The attendant drew a red handkerchief from 
his bosom, and, mopping up the mess, he followed 
it into the corner, where in a moment he found 
himself face to face with his observer. 

“Excuse me,” said John Vansittart Smith, with 


270 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


all imaginable politeness ; “ I have been unfortunate 
enough to fall asleep behind this door.” 

“ And you have been watching me ? ” the other 
asked in English, with a most venomous look on his 
corpse-like face. 

The student was a man of veracity. “ I confess,” 
said he, “ that I have noticed your movements, and 
that they have aroused my curiosity and interest in 
the highest degree.” 

The man drew a long, flamboyant-bladed knife 
from his bosom. “ You have had a very narrow 
escape,” he said ; ‘‘had I seen you ten minutes ago, 
I should have driven this through your heart. As 
it is, if you touch me or interfere with me in any 
way you are a dead man.” 

“I have no wish to interfere with you,” the 
student answered. “My presence here is entirely 
accidental. All I ask is that you will have the ex- 
treme kindness to show me out through some side 
door.” He spoke with great suavity, for the man 
was still pressing the tip of his dagger against the 
palm of his left hand, as though to assure himself 
of its sharpness, while his face preserved its malig- 
nant expression. 

“ If I thought — ” said he. “ But no, perhaps it 
is as well. What is your name ? ” 

The Englishman gave it. 

“ Yansittart Smith,” the other repeated. ‘'Are 
you the same Yansittart Smith who gave a paper in 
London upon El Kab ? I saw a report of it. Your 
knowledge of the subject is contemptible.” 

“ Sir I ” cried the Egyptologist. 


THE RING OF THOTH. 


271 


‘‘ Yet it is superior to that of many who make 
even greater pretensions. The whole keystone of 
our old life in Egypt was not the inscriptions or 
monuments of which you make so much but was 
our hermetic philosophy and mystic knowledge, of 
which you say little or nothing.” 

“ Our old life ! ” repeated the scholar, wide-eyed ; 
and then suddenly : “ Good God, look at the 
mummy’s face ! ” 

The strange man turned and flashed his light 
upon the dead woman, uttering a long, doleful cry 
as he did so. The action of the air had already 
undone all the art of the embalmer. The skin had 
fallen away, the eyes had sunk inward, the dis- 
colored lips had writhed away from the yellow 
teeth, and the brown mark upon the forehead alone 
showed that it was indeed the same face which had 
shown such youth and beauty a few short minutes 
before. 

The man flapped his hands together in grief and 
horror. Then mastering himself by a strong effort, 
he turned his hard eyes once more upon the Eng- 
lishman. 

“ It does not matter,” he said, in a shaking voice. 
“ It does not really matter. I came here to-night 
with the fixed determination to do something. It 
is now done. All else is as nothing. I have found 
my quest. The old curse is broken. I can rejoin 
her. What matter about her inanimate shell so long 
as her spirit is awaiting me at the other side of the 
veil ! ” 

‘‘These are wild words,” said Vansittart Smith 


272 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


He was becoming more and more convinced that hf 
had to do with a madman. 

“Time presses, and I must go,” continued the 
other. “ The moment is at hand for which I nave 
waited this weary time. But I must show you out 
first. Come with me.” 

Taking up the lamp, he turned from the disor- 
dered chamber, and led the student swiftly through 
the long series of the Egyptian, Assyrian, an Persian 
apartments. At the end of the latter he pushed open 
' a small door let into the wall, and descended a wind- 
ing stone stair. The Englishman felt the cold fresh 
air of the night upon his brow. There was a door 
opposite him which appeared to communicate with 
the street. To the right of this another door stood 
ajar, throwing a spurt of yellow light across the 
passage. “ Come in here ! ” said the attendant 
shortly. 

Vansittart Smith hesitated. He had hoped that 
he had come to the end of his adv^enture. Yet his 
curiosity was strong within him. He could not 
leave the matter unsolved, so he followed his strange 
companion into the lighted chamber. 

It was a small room, such as is devoted to a concierge, 
A wood fire sparkled in the grate. At one side stood 
a truckle bed, and at the other a coarse wooden 
chair, with a round table in the center, which bore 
the remains of a meal. As the visitor’s eye 
glanced round he could not but remark with 
an ever-recurring thrill that all the small details 
of the room were of the most quaint design and 
antique workmanship. The candlesticks, the vases 


THE RING OF THOTH. 


273 

npon the chimney-piece, the fire-irons, the orna- 
ments upon the walls, were all such as he had been 
wont to associate with the remote past. The 
gnarled, heavy-eyed man sat himself down upon the 
edge of the bed, and motioned his guest into the 
chair. 

“ There may be design in this,” he said, still speak- 
ing excellent English. “ It may be decreed that 
I should leave some account behind as a warning to 
all rash mortals who would set their wits up against 
workings of Nature. I leave it with you. Make 
such use as you will of it. I speak to you now with 
my feet upon the threshold of the other world. 

“ I am, as you surmised, an Egyptian — not one of 
the down-trodden race of slaves who now inhabit 
the Delta of the Nile, but a survivor of that fiercer 
and harder people who tamed the Hebrew, drove 
the Ethiopian back into the southern deserts, and 
built those mighty works which have been the envy 
and the wonder of all after generations. It was in 
the reign of Tuthmosis, sixteen hundred years be- 
fore the birth of Christ, that I first saw the light. 
You shrink away from me. Wait, and you will see 
that I am more to be pitied than to be feared. 

“ My name was Sosra. My father had been the 
chief priest of Osiris in the great temple of Abaris, 
which stood in those days upon th6 Bubastic branch 
of the Nile. I was brought up in the temple and 
was trained in all those mystic arts which are spoken 
of in your own Bible. I was an apt pupil. Before 
I was sixteen I had learned all which the wisest 
priest could teach me. From that time on I studied 

i8 ^ 


374 sign of the four. 

Nature’s secrets for myself, and shared my knowl 
edge with no man. 

“Of all the questions which attracted me there 
were none over which I labored so long as over those 
which concern themselves with the nature of life. 
I probed deeply into the vital principle. The aim 
of medicine had been to drive away disease when it 
appeared. It seemed to me that a method might 
be devised which should so fortify the body as to 
prevent weakness or death from ever taking hold 
of it. It is useless that I should recount my re- 
searches. You would scarce comprehend them if I 
did. They were carried out partly upon animals, 
partly upon slaves, and partly on myself. Suffice it 
that their result was to furnish me with a substance 
which, when injected into the blood, would endow 
the body with strength to resist the effects of time, 
of violence, or of disease. It would not, indeed, 
confer immortality, but its potency would endure 
for many thousands of years. I used it upon a cat, 
and afterward drugged the creature with the most 
deadly poisons. That cat is alive in Lower Egypt 
at the present moment. There was nothing of mys- 
tery or magic in the matter. It was simply a chem- 
ical discovery, which may well be made again. 

“ Love of life runs high in the young. It seemed 
to me that I had broken away from all human care 
now that I had abolished pain and driven death to 
such a distance. With a light heart I poured the 
accursed stuff into my veins. Then I looked round 
for some one whom I could benefft. There was a 
young priest of Thoth, Parmes by name, who had won 


THE RING OF THOTH. 


275 


my good will by his earnest nature and his devotion 
to his studies. To him I whispered my secret, and at 
his request I injected him with my elixir. I should 
now, I reflected, never be without a companion of 
the same age as myself. 

. “ After this grand discovery I relaxed my studies 
to some extent, but Pannes continued his with 
redoubled energy. Every day I could see him work- 
ing with his flasks and his distiller in the Temple 
of Thoth, but he said little to me as to the result of 
his labors. For my own part, I used to walk through 
the city and look around me with exultation as I 
reflected that all this was destined to pass away, 
and that only I should remain. The people would 
bow to me as they passed me, for the fame of my 
knowledge had gone abroad. 

“ There was war at this time, and the great king 
had sent down his soldiers to the eastern boundary 
to drive away the Hyksos. A governor, too, was 
sent to Abaris, that he might hold it for the king. 
I had heard much of the beauty of the daughter of 
this governor, but one day as I walked out with 
Parmes we met her, borne upon the shoulders of 
her slaves. I was struck with love as with lightning. 
My heart went out from me. I could have thrown 
myself beneath the feet of her bearers. This was my 
woman. Life without her was impossible. I swore 
by the head of Horus that she should be mine. I 
swore it to the priest of Thoth. He turned away 
from me with a brow which was as black as midnight. 

“ There is no need to tell you of our wooing. She 
came to love me even as I loved her. I learned that 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


m 

Parmes had seen her befc re I did, and had shown 
her that he too loved her ; but I could smile at his 
passion, for I knew that her heart was mine. The 
white plague had come i pon the city, and many 
were stricken, but I laid my hands upon the sick 
and nursed them without ear or scathe. She mar- 
veled at my daring. Then I told her my secret, 
and begged her that she v ould let me use my art 
upon her. 

“ ‘ Your flower shall th n be unwithered, Atma,’ 
I said. ‘ Other things mav pass away, but you and 
I, and our great love for each other, shall outlive 
the tomb of King Chefru.’ 

“ But she was full of ti aid, maidenly objections. 
‘ Was it right?’ she asked, ‘ was it not a thwarting 
of the will of the gods ? If the great Osiris had 
wished that our years should be so long, would he 
not himself have brought H about ? ’ 

“With fond and loving words I overcame her 
doubts ; and yet she hesitated. It was a great 
question, she said. She would think it over for this 
one night. In the morning I should know her res- 
olution. Surely one night was not too much to 
ask. She wished to pray to Isis for help in her 
decision. 

“With a sinking heart and a sad foreboding of 
evil, I left her with her tirewomen. In the morning, 
when the early sacrifice was over, I hurried to her 
house. A frightened slave met me upon the steps. 
Her mistress was ill, she said, very ill. In a frenzy 
I broke my way through the attendants, and rushed 
through hall and corridor to my Atma’s chamber. 


THE RING OF THOTH. 


277 


She lay upon her eouch, her head high upon the 
pillow, with a pallid face and a glazed eye. On her 
forehead there blazed a single angry purple patch. 
I knew that hell-mark of old. It was the scar of 
the white plague, the sign-manual of death. 

“ Why should I speak of that terrible time ? For 
months I was mad, fevered, delirious, and yet I 
could not die. Never did an Arab thirst after the 
sweet wells as I longed after death. Could poison 
or steel have shortened the thread of my existence, 
I should soon have rejoined my love in the land 
with the narrow portal. I tried, but it was of no 
avail. The accursed influence was too strong upon 
me. One night as I lay upon my couch, weak and 
weary, Parmes, the priest of Thoth, came to my 
chamber. He stood in the circle of the lamp-light, 
and he looked down upon me with eyes which were 
bright with a mad joy. 

« « Why did you let the maiden die ? ’ he asked ; 
‘ why did you not strengthen her as you strengthened 
me?’ 

“ ‘ It was too late,’ I answered. ‘ But I had forgot- 
ten. You also loved her. You are my fellow in 
misfortune. Is it not terrible to think of the cent- 
uries which must pass ere we look upon her again ? 
Fools, fools, that we were to take death to be our 
enemy ! ’ 

“ ‘ You may say that,’ he cried, with a wild laugh ; 
‘ the words come well from your lips. For me they 
have no meaning.’ 

“ ‘ What mean you ? ’ I cried, raising myself upon 
my elbow. ‘ Surely, friend, this grief has turned 


278 


THE SIGN OF THE POUR. 


your brain.’ His face was aflame with joy, and he 
writhed and shook like one who hath a devil. 

“ ‘ Do you know whither I go ? ’ he asked. 

“ ‘ Nay,’ I answered, ‘ I cannot tell.’ 

“ ‘ I go to her,’ said he. ‘ She lies embalmed in 
the further tomb by the double palm-tree beyond 
the city wall.’ 

« ‘ Why do you go there ? ’ I asked. 

“ ‘ To die ! ’ he shrieked, ‘ to die ! I am not bound 
by earthen fetters.’ 

“ ‘ But the elixir is in your blood,’ I cried. 

“ ‘ I can defy it,’ said he ; ‘ I have found a stronger 
principle which will destroy it. It is working in 
my veins at this moment, and in an hour I shall be 
a dead man. I shall join her, and you shall remair 
behind.’ 

“ As I looked upon him I could see that he spoke 
words of truth. The light in his eyes told me that 
he was indeed beyond the power of the elixir. 

“ ‘ You will teach me ! ’ I cried. 

“ ‘ Never ! ’ he answered. 

“ ‘ I implore you, by the. wisdom of Thoth, by the 
majesty of Anubis ! ’ 

‘ It is useless,’ he said, coldly. 

“ ‘ Then I will find it out,’ I cried. 

“‘You cannot,’ he answered; ‘it came to me by 
chance. There is one ingredient which you can 
never get. Save that which is in the ring of Thoth, 
none will ever more be made.’ 

“ ‘ In the ring of Thoth ! ’ I repeated ; ‘ where, 
then, is the ring of Thoth ? ’ 

“ ‘ That also you shall never know,’ he answered. 


THE RING OF THOTH. 


* You won her love. Who has won in the end ? I 
leave you to 3^our sordid earth life. My chains are 
broken. I must go ! ’ He turned upon his heel and 
fled from the chamber. In the morning came the 
news that the priest of Thoth was dead. 

“ My days after that were spent in study. I 
must find this subtle poison which was strong enough 
to undo the elixir. From early dawn to midnight I 
bent over the test-tube and the furnace. Above all, 
I collected the papyri and the chemical flasks of the 
priest of Thoth. Alas ! they taught me little. Here 
and there some hint or stray expression would raise 
hope in my bosom, but no good ever came of it. 
Still, month after month, I struggled on. When 
my heart grew faint I would make my way to the 
tomb by the palm-trees. There, standing by the 
dead casket from which the jewel had been rifled, I 
would feel her sweet presence, and would whisper 
to her that I would rejoin her if mortal wit could 
solve the riddle. 

“ Parmes had said that his discovery was con- 
nected with the ring of Thoth. I had some remem- 
brance of the trinket. It was a large and weighty 
circlet, made, not of gold, but of a rarer and heavier 
metal brought from the mines of Mount Harbal. 
Platinum, you call it. The ring had, I remembered, 
a hollow crystal set in it, in which some few drops of 
liquid might be stored. How, the secret of Parmes 
could not have to do with the metal alone, for 
there were many rings of that metal in the Temple. 
Was it not more likely that he had stored his pre- 
cious poison within the cavity of the crystal ? I had 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


280 

scarce come to this conclusion before, in hunting 
through his papers, I came upon one which told me 
that it was indeed so, and that there was still some 
of the liquid unused. 

“ But how to find the ring ? It was not upon him 
when he was stripped for the embalmer. Of that I 
made sure. Neither was it among his private effects 
In vain I searched every room that he had entered, 
every box, and vase, and chattel that he had owned, 
I sifted the very sand of the desert in the places 
where he had been wont to walk ; but, do what I 
would, I could come upon no traces of the ring of 
Thoth. Yet it may be that my labors would have 
overcome all obstacles had it not been for a new and 
unlooked-for misfortune. 

“ A great war had been waged against the Hyksos, 
and the captains of the great king had been cut off 
in the desert, with all their bowmen and horsemen. 
The shepherd tribes were upon us like the locusts 
in a dry year. From the wilderness of Shur to the 
great bitter lake there was blood by day and fire 
by night. Abaris was the bulwark of Egypt, but 
we could not keep the savages back. The city 
fell. The governor and the soldiers were put to the 
sword, and I, with many more, was led away into 
captivity. 

“ For years and years I tended cattle in the great 
plains by the Euphrates. My master died, and his 
son grew old, but I was still as far from death as 
ever. At last I escaped upon a swift camel, and 
made my way back to Egypt. The Hyksos had 
settled in the land which they had conquered, and 


THE RING OF THOTH. 


281 


their own king ruled over the country. Abaris had 
been torn down, the city had been burned, and of 
the great temple there was nothing left save an un- 
sightly mound. Everywhere the tombs had been 
rifled and the monuments destroyed. Of my Atma’s 
grave no sign was left. It was buried in the sands 
of the desert, and the palm-trees which marked the 
spot had long disappeared. The papers of Parmes 
and the remains of the Temple of Thoth were either 
destroyed or scattered far and wide over the deserts 
of Syria. All search after them was vain. 

“ From that time I gave up all hope of ever find- 
ing the ring or discovering the subtle drug. I set 
myself to live as patiently as might be until the 
effect of the elixir should wear away. How can 
you understand how terrible a thing time is, you 
who have experienced only the narrow course which 
lies between the cradle and the grave ! I know it to 
my cost, I who have floated down the whole stream 
of history. I Avas old Avhen Illium fell. I Avas 
very old Avhen Herodotus came to Memphis. I was 
boAved doAvn with years Avhen the new Gospel came 
upon earth. Yet you see me much as other men are, 
with the cursed elixir still sAveetening my blood, and 
guarding me against that Avhich I would court. 
How at last, at last, I have come to the end 
of it! 

“ I have traveled in all lands and I have dwelt 
with all nations. Every tongue is the same to me. 
I learned them all to help pass the weary time. 1 
need not tell you how slowly they drifted by, the 
long dawn of modern civilization, the dreary middle 


282 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


years, the dark times of barbarism. They are aii 
behind me now. I have never looked with the eyes 
of love upon another woman. Atma knows that 1 
have been constant to her. 

“ It was my custom to read all that the scholars 
had to say upon ancient Egypt. I have been in 
many positions, sometimes affluent, sometimes poor, 
but I have always found enough to enable me to 
buy the journals which deal with such matters. 
Some nine months ago I was in San Francisco, when 
I read an account of some discoveries made in the 
neighborhood of Abaris. My heart leaped into my 
mouth as I read it. It said that the excavator had 
busied himself in exploring some tombs recently 
unearthed. In one there had been found an un- 
opened mummy with an inscription upon the outer 
case setting forth that it contained the body of the 
daughter of the governor of the city in the days of 
Tuthmosis. It added that on removing the outer 
case there had been exposed a large platinum ring 
set with a crystal," which had been laid upon the 
breast of the embalmed woman. This, then, was 
where Parmes had hidden the ring of Thoth. He 
might well say that it was safe, for no Egyptian 
would ever stain his soul by moving even the outer 
case of a buried friend. 

‘‘ That very night I set off from San Francisco, 
and in a few weeks I found myself once more at 
Abaris, if a few sand-heaps and crumbling walls 
may retain the name of the great city. I hurried to 
the Frenchmen who were digging there and asked 
them for the ring. They replied that both the ring 


THE RING OF THOTH. 


283 


and the mummy had been sent to the Boulak 
Museum at Cairo. To Boulak I went, but only to 
be told that Mariette Bey had claimed them and 
had shipped them to the Louvre. I followed them, 
and there at last, in the Egyptian chamber, I came, 
after close upon four thousand years, upon the re- 
mains of my Atma, and upon the ring for which I 
had sought so long. 

‘‘ But how was I to lay hands upon them? How 
was I to have them for my very own ? It chanced 
that the office of attendant was vacant. I went to 
the director. I convinced him that I knew much 
about Egypt. In my eagerness I said too much. 
He remarked that a professor’s chair would suit me 
better than a seat in the conciergerie. I knew more, 
he said, than he did. It was only by blundering 
and letting him think that he had over-estimated 
my knowledge, that I prevailed upon him to let me 
move the few effects which I have retained into 
this chamber. It is my first and my last night 
here. 

Such is my story, Mr. Yansittart Smith. I need 
not say more to a man of your perception. By a 
strange chance you have this night looked upon the 
face of the woman whom I loved in those far-off 
days. There were many rings with crystals in the 
case, and I had to test for the platinum to be sure 
of the one which I wanted. A glance at the crystal 
has shown me that the liquid is indeed within it, 
and that I shall at last be able to shake off that 
accursed health which has been worse to me than 
the foulest disease. I have nothing more to say to 


284 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


you. I have unburdened myself. You may tell my 
story or you may withhold it at your pleasure. The 
choice rests with you. I owe you some amends, for 
you have had a narrow escape of your life this 
night. I was a desperate man, and not to be balked 
in my purpose. Had 1 seen you before the thing 
was done, I might have put it beyond your 
power to oppose me or raise an alarm. This is 
the door. It leads into the Rue de Rivoli. Good 
night ! ” 

The Englishman glanced back. For a moment 
the lean figure of Sosra the Egyptian stood framed 
in the narrow doorway. The next the door had 
slammed, and the heavy rasping of a bolt broke on 
the silent night. 

It was on the second day after his return to Lon- 
don that Mr. John Yansittart Smith saw the follow- 
ing concise narrative in the Paris correspondence of 
the Times: 

Curious Occurrence in the Lou/vre . — Yesterday 
morning a strange discovery was made in the prin- 
cipal Egyptian chamber. The ouvriers who are em- 
ployed to clean out the rooms in the morning found 
one of the attendants lying dead upon the fioor with 
his arms round one of the mummies. So close was 
his embrace that it was only with the utmost diffi- 
culty that they were separated. One of the cases 
containing valuable rings had been opened and rifled. 
The authorities are of opinion that the man was 
bearing away the mummy with some idea of 
selling it to a private collector, but that he was 
struck down in the very act by long-standing dis* 


THE RING OF THOTH. 


285 


ease of the heart. It is said that he was a man of 
uncertain age and eccentric habits, without any 
living relations to mourn over his dramatic and 
untimely end.” 


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4 




THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 


CHAPTER L 

HOW THE WOMAN CAME TO KIEKBY-MALHOUSB. 

Bleak and wind-swept is the little town of Kirkby- 
Malhouse, and harsh and forbidding are the fells 
upon which it stands. It stretches in a single line 
of gray-stone, slate-roofed houses, dotted down the 
furze-clad slope of the long rolling moor. To the 
north and south stretch the swelling curves of the 
Yorkshire uplands, peeping over each other’s backs 
to the sky land, with a tinge of yellow in the fore- 
ground, which shades away to olive in the distance, 
save where the long gray scars of rock protrude 
through the scanty and barren soil. From the little 
barren knoll above the church one may see to the 
westward a fringe of gold upon an arc of silver, 
where the great Morecambe sands are washed by 
the Irish Sea. To the east, Ingleborough looms 
purple in the distance; while Pennigent shoots up 
the tapering peak, whose great shadow, like Na- 
ture’s own sun-dial, sweeps slowly around over a vast 
expanse of savage and sterile country. 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


In this lonely and secluded village, I, James Up- 
perton, found myself in the summer of ’85. Little as 
the hamlet had to offer, it contained that for which 
I yearned above all things — seclusion and freedom 
from all which might distract my mind from the 
high and weighty subjects which engaged it. I 
was weary of the long turmoil and profitless striv- 
ings of life. From early youth my days had been 
spent in wild adventure and strange experiences, 
until at the age of thirty-nine there were few lands 
upon which I had not set foot, and scarcely any joy 
or sorrow of which I had not tasted. Among the 
first of Europeans, I had penetrated to the desolate 
shores of Lake Tanganyika ; I had twice made my 
way to those unvisited and impenetrable jungles 
which skirt the great table-land of Koraima. As a 
soldier of fortune I had served under many flags. I 
was with Jackson in the Shenandoah Yalley ; and I 
fought with Chanzy in the army of the Loire. It 
may well seem strange that, after a life so exciting, 
I could give myself up to the dull routine and trivial 
interests of the West Biding hamlet. And yet there 
are excitements of the mmd to which mere bodily 
peril or the exaltation of ^:ravel is mean and com- 
monplace. For years I had devoted myself to the 
study of the mystic and heriiietic philosophies, Egyp- 
tian, Indian, Grecian and medieval, until out of the 
vast chaos there had dimly dawned upon me a huge 
symmetrical design ; and I seemed to grasp the key 
of that symbolism which v as used by those learned 
men to screen their precicus knowledge from the 
vulgar and the wicked. Gnostics and Heo-platonists, 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER PELL. 289 

Chaldeans, Eosicrucians, and Indian Mystics, I saw 
and understood in which, each played a part. To 
me the jargon of Paracelsus, the mysteries of the 
alchemists, and the visions of Swedenborg were all 
pregnant with meaning. I had deciphered the mys- 
terious inscriptions of El Biram ; and I knew the 
import of those strange characters which have been 
engraved by an unknown race upon the cliffs of 
Southern Turkestan. Immersed in these great and 
engrossing studies, I asked nothing from life save a 
garret for myself and for my books, where I might 
pursue my studies without interference or interrup- 
tion. 

But even in this little moorside village I found that 
it was impossible to shake off the censorship of 
one’s fellow-mortals. When I went forth, the rustics 
would eye me askance, and mothers would whip up 
their children as I passed down the village street. 
At night I have glanced through my diamond-paned 
lattice to find that a group of foolish, staring peas- 
ants had been craning their necks in an ectasy of 
fear and curiosity to watch me at my solitary task. 
My landlady, too, became garrulous with a clatter 
of questions under every small pretext, and a hun- 
dred small ruses and wiles by which to tempt me 
to speak to her of myself and of my plans. All 
this was ill to bear ; but when at last I heard that 
1 was no longer to be sole lodger, and that a lady, 
a stranger, had engaged the other room, I felt that 
indeed it was time for one who sought the quiet and 
the peace of study to seek some more tranquil sur*- 
jpounding. 

‘9 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


290 

In my frequent walks I had learned to know well 
the wild and desolate region where Yorkshire 
borders on both Lancashire and Westmoreland. 
From Kirkby-Malhouse I had frequently made my 
way to this lonesome wilderness, and had traversed 
it from end to end. In the gloomy majesty of its 
scenery, and the appalling stillness and loneliness 
of its rock-strewn, melancholy solitudes, it seemed 
to offer me a secure asylum from espionage and 
criticism. As it chanced, I had in my rambles come 
upon an isolated dwelling in the very heart of these 
lonely moors, which I at once determined should be 
my own. It was a two- roomed cottage, which had 
once belonged to some shepherd, but which had long 
been deserted, and was crumbling rapidly to ruin. 
In the winter floods, the Gaster Beck, which runs 
down Gaster Fell, where the little shieling stood, had 
overswept its bank and torn away a portion of the 
wall. The roof, too, was in ill case, and the scattered 
slates lay thick amongst the grass. Yet the main 
shell of the house stood firm and true ; and it was 
no great task for me to have all that was amiss set 
right. Though not rich, I could yet afford to carry 
out so modest a whim in a lordly way. There came 
slaters and masons from Kirby-Malhouse, and soon 
the lonely cottage upon Gaster Fell was as strong 
and weather-tight as ever. 

The two rooms I laid out in a widely different 
manner — my own tastes are of a Spartan turn, and 
the outer chamber was so planned as to accord with 
them. An oil-stove by Rippingille of Birmingham 
furnished me with the means of cooking j while two 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 291 

great bags, the one of flour, and the other of pota- 
toes, made me independent of ail supplies from with- 
out. In diet I had long been a Pythagorean, so that 
the scraggy long-limbed sheep which browsed upon 
the wiry grass by the Gaster Beck had little to fear 
from their new companion. A nine-gallon cask of 
oil served me as a sideboard ; while a square table, a 
deal chair, and a truckle-bed completed the list of my 
domestic fittings. At the head of my couch hung 
two unpainted shelves — the lower for my dishes and 
cooking utensils, the upper for the few portraits 
which took me back to the little that was pleasant 
in the long, wearisome toiling for wealth and for 
pleasure which had marked the life I had left behind. 

If this dwelling-room of mine were plain even to 
squalor, its poverty was more than atoned for by 
the luxury of the chamber which was destined to 
serve me as my study. I had ever held that it Avas 
best for the mind to be surrounded by such objects 
as would be in harmony Avith the studies which oc- 
cupied it, and that the loftiest and most ethereal 
conditions of thought are only possible amid sur- 
roundings which please the eye and gratify the 
senses. The room which I had set apart for my 
mystic studies was set forth in a style as gloomy 
and majestic as the thoughts and aspirations with 
which it was to harmonize. Both Avails and ceilings 
were covered with a paper of the richest and 
glossiest black, on which was traced a lurid and 
arabesque pattern of dead gold. A black velvet 
curtain covered the single diamond-paned window ; 
while a thick, yielding carpet of the same material 


292 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


prevented the sound of my own footfalls, as I paced 
backward and forward, from breaking the current 
of my thoughts. Along the cornices ran gold rods, 
from which depended six pictures, all of the somber 
and imaginative caste, which chimed best with my 
fancy. Two, as I remember, were from the brush 
of Fuseli; one from Noel Pa ton ; one from Gustave 
Dor6; two from Martin; with a little water-color 
by the incomparable Blake. From the center of 
the ceiling hung a single gold thread, so thin as to 
be scarce visible, but of great toughness. From this 
swung a dove of the same metal, with wings out- 
stretched. The bird was hollow, and contained 
perfumed oil; while a sylph-like figure, curiously 
fashioned from pink crystal, hovered over the lamp, 
and imparted a soft and rich glow to the light. 
A brazen fireplace backed with malachite, two tiger 
skins upon the carpet, a buhl table, and two reclin- 
ing chairs in amber plush and ebony, completed the 
furniture of my bijou study, save only that under 
the window stretched the long book-shelves, which 
contained the choicest works of those who have 
busied themselves with the mystery of life. 

Boehme, Swedenborg, Damton, Berto, Lacci, 
Sinnett, Hardinge, Britten, Dunlop, Amberley, 
Win wood Bead, Des Mousseaux, Alan Kardec, Lep- 
sius, Sepher, Toldo, and the Abbe Dubois — these 
were some of those who stood marshaled between 
my oaken shelves. When the lamp was lighted of 
a night and the lurid, dickering light played over 
the somber and bizarre surroundings, the effect was 
all that I could wish. Nor was it lessened by the 


THE SURGEON OP GASTER PELL. 


293 


howling of the wind as it swept over the melancholy 
waste around me. Here, at last, I thought, is a 
back-eddy in life’s hurried stream, where I may lie 
in peace, forgetting and forgotten. 

And yet it was destined that ere ever I reached 
this quiet harbor I should learn that I was still one 
of humankind, and that it is an ill thing to strive 
to break the bond which binds us to our fellows. 
It was but two nights before the date I had fixed 
upon for my change of dwelling, when I was con- 
scious of a bustle in the house beneath, with the 
bearing of heavy burdens up the creaking stair, and 
the harsh voice of my landlady, loud in welcome 
and protestations of joy. From time to time, amid 
her whirl of words, I could hear a gentle and softly 
modulated voice, which struck pleasantly upon my 
ear after the long weeks during which I had listened 
only to the rude dialect of the dalesmen. For an 
hour I could hear the dialogue beneath — the high 
voice and the low, with clatter of cup and clink of 
spoon^ until at last a light quick step passed my 
study door, and I knew tliat my new fellow-lodger 
had sought her room. Already my fears had been 
fulfilled, and my studies the worse for her coming. 
I vowed in my mind that the second sunset should 
find me installed, safe from all such petty infiuences, 
in my sanctuary at Gaster Fell. 

On the morning after this incident I was up be : 
times, as is my wont ; but I w’as surprised, on glanc- 
ing from my window, to see that our new inmate 
was earlier still. She was walking down the narrow 
pathway which zigzags over the fell — a tall woman, 


294 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


slender, her head sunk upon her breast, her arms 
filled with a bristle of wild flowers, which she had 
gathered in her morning rambles. The white and 
pink of her dress, and the touch of deep red ribbon 
in her broad drooping hat, formed a pleasant dash 
of color against the dun-tinted landscape. She was 
some distance off when I first set eyes upon her, 
yet I knew that this wandering woman could be 
none other than our arrival of last night, for there 
was a grace and refinement in her bearing which 
marked her from the dwellers of the fells. Even as I 
watched, she passed swiftly and lightly down the 
pathway, and turning through the wicket gate, at the 
further end of our cottage garden, she seated herself 
upon the green bank which faced my window, and 
strewing her flowers in front of her, set herself to 
arrange them. 

As she sat there, with the rising sun at her back, 
and the glow of the morning spreading like an 
aureole around her stately and well-poised head, I 
could see that she was a woman of extraordinary 
personal beauty. Her face was Spanish rather than 
English in its type — oval, olive, with black sparkling 
eyes, and a sweetly sensitive mouth. From under 
the broad straw hat two thick coils of blue-black 
hair curved down on either side of her graceful, 
queenly neck. I was surprised, as I watched her, 
to see that her shoes and skirt bore witness to a 
journey rather than to a mere morning ramble. 
Her light dress was stained, wet, and bedraggled ; 
while her boots were thick with the yellow soil of 
the fells. Her face, too, wore a weary expression. 


THE SURGEON OP GASTER PELL, 295 

and her young beauty seemed to be clouded over 
by the shadow of inward trouble. Even as 1 
watched her, she burst suddenly into wild weeping, 
and throwing down her bundle of flowers, ran swiftly 
into the house. 

Distrait as I was, and weary of the ways of the 
world, I was conscious of a sudden pang of sym- 
pathy and grief as I looked upon the spasm of des- 
pair which seemed to convulse this strange and 
beautiful woman. I bent to my books, and yet 
my thoughts would ever turn to her proud, clear- 
cut face, her weather-stained dress, her drooping 
head, and the sorrow which lay in each line and 
feature of her pensive face. Again and again I 

J und myself standing at my casement, arid glano 
g out to see if there were signs of her return, 
tiere on the green bank was the litter of golden 
gorse and purple marsh-mallow where she had left 
them ; but through 'the whole morning I neither 
saw nor heard anything from her who had so sud- 
denly aroused my curiosity and stirred my long- 
slumbering emotions. 

Mrs. Adams, my landlady, was wont to carry up 
my frugal breakfast ; yet it was very rarely that I 
allowed her to break the current of my thoughts, or 
to draw my mind by her idle chatter from weightier 
things. This morning, however, for once she found 
me in a listening mood, and with little prompting, 
proceeded to pour into my ears all that she knew of 
our beautiful visitor. 

“ Miss Eva Cameron be her name, sir,” she said ; 
but who she be, or where she come fra, I know 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


296 

little more than yo^rsel^ Maybe it was the same 
reason that brought her to Kirkby-Malhouse as 
fetched you there yourseP, sir.” 

“ Possibly,” said I, ignoring the covert question ; 
“ but I should hardly have thought that Kirkby-Mal- 
house was a place which offered any great attrac- 
tions to a young lady.” 

“ It’s a gay place when the fair is on,” said Mrs. 
Adams ; “yet maybe it’s just health and rest as the 
young lady is seeking.” 

“Yery likely,” said I, stirring my coffee; “and 
no doubt some friend of yours has advised her to 
seek them in your very comfortable apartments.” 

“ Heh, sir ! ” she cried, “ there’s the wonder of it. 
The leddy has just come fra France ; and how her 
folk came to learn of me is just a wonder. A week 
ago, up comes a man to my door — a fine man, sir, 
and a gentleman, as one could see with half an eye. 
‘ You are Mrs. Adams,’ says he. ‘ I engage your 
rooms for Miss Cameron,’ says he. ‘She will be 
here in a week,’ says he ; and then off without a 
word of terms. Last night there comes the young 
leddy hersel’ — soft-spoken and downcast, with a 
touch of the French in her speech. But my sakes, 
sir! I must away and mak’ her some tea, for she’ll 
feel lonesome-like, poor lamb, when she wake? under 
a strange roof.” 


2^1 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 

CHAPTEE II. 

HOW I WENT FORTH TO GASTER FELL. 

I WAS still engaged upon my breakfast when I 
heard the clatter of dishes and the landlady’s foot- 
fall as she passed toward her new lodger’s room. 
An instant afterward she bad rushed down the 
passage and burst in upon me with uplifted hand 
and startled eyes. “ Lord ’a mercy, sir! ” she cried, 
“and asking your pardon for troubling you, but 
I’m feared o’ the young leddy, sir ; she is not in her 
room.” 

“ Why, there she is,” said I, standing up and 
glancing through the casement. “ She has gone 
back for the flowers she left upon the bank.” 

“ Oh, sir, see to her boots and her dress ! ” cried 
the landlady, wildly. “ I wish her mother was here, 
sir — I do. Where she has been is more than I ken, 
but her bed has not been lain on this night.” 

“ She has felt restless, doubtless, and went for a 
walk, though the hour was certainly a strange one.” 

Mrs. Adams pursed her lip and shook her head. 
But even as she stood at the casement, the girl be- 
neath looked smilingly up at her and beckoned to 
her with a merry gesture to open the window. 

“ Have you my tea there ? ” she asked in a rich, 
clear voice, with a touch of the mincing French 
accent. 

“ It is in your room, miss.” 

“ Look at my boots, Mrs% Adams ! ” she cried, 


298 


THE SIGN OF I HE FOUR. 


thrusting them out from under her skirt. These 
fells of yours are dreadful places — effroyable — one 
inch, two inch ; never have I seen such mud ! My 
dress, too— voila ! ” 

“ Eh, miss, but you are in a pickle,” cried the 
landlady, as she gazed down at the bedraggled 
gown. “ But you must be main weary and heavy 
for sleep.” 

“ No, no,” she answered, laughing, “ I care not for 
sleep. What is sleep? v^It is a little death — voila 
tout. But for me to walk, to run, to breathe the 
air — that is to live. I was not tired, and so all 
night I have explored these fells of Yorkshire.” 

“ Lord ’a mercy, miss, and where did you go ? ” 
asked Mrs. Adams. 

She waved her hand round in a sweeping gesture 
which included the whole western horizon. “ There,” 
she cried. “ O comme elles sont tristes et sauvages, 
ces collines ! But I have flowers here. You will 
give me water, will you not ? They will wither 
else.” She gathered her treasures into her lap, and 
a moment later we heard her light, springy footfall 
upon the stair. 

So she had been out all night, this strange woman. 
What motive could have taken her from her snug 
room on to the bleak, wind-swept hills ? Could it 
be merely the restlessness, the love of adventure of 
a young girl ? Or was there, possibly, some deeper 
meaning in this nocturnal journey ? 

I thought, as I paced my chamber, of her droop- 
ing head, the grief upon her face, and the wild burst 
of sobbing which I had overseen in the garden. 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 299 

Her nightly mission, then, be it what it might, had 
left no thought of pleasure behind it. And yet, 
even as I walked, I could hear the merry tinkle of 
her laughter, and her voice upraised in protest 
against the motherly care wherewith Mrs. Adams 
insisted upon her changing her mud-stained gar- 
ments. Deep as were the mysteries which my 
studies had taught me to solve, here was a human 
problem which for the moment at least was beyond 
my comprehension. I had walked out on the moor 
in the forenoon, and on my return, as I topped the 
brow that overlooks the little town, I saw my 
fellow-lodger some little distance off among the 
gorse. She had raised a light easel in front of her, 
and with papered board laid across it, was preparing 
to paint the magnificent landscape of rock and moor 
which stretched away in front of her. As I watched 
her I saw that she was looking anxiously to right 
and left. Close by me a pool of water had formed 
in a hollow. Dipping the cup of my pocket-flask 
into it, I carried it across to her. “ This is what you 
need, I think,” said I, raising my cap and smiling. 

“ Merci, Men ! ” she answered, pouring the water 
into her saucer, “ I was indeed in search of some.” 

“ Miss Cameron, I believe,” said 1. “ I am your 
fellow-lodger. Upperton is my name. "We must 
introduce ourselves in these wilds if we are not to 
be forever strangers.” 

“ Oh, then, you live also with Mrs. Adams ! ” she 
cried. “ I had thought that there were none but 
peasants in this strange place.” 

‘‘ I am a visitor, like yourself,” I answered. “ 1 


300 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


am a student, and have come for the quiet and repose 
which my studies demand.’* 

“ Quiet indeed ! '* said she, glancing round at the 
vast circle of silent moors, with the one tiny line of 
gray cottages which sloped down beneath us. 

' “ And yet not quiet enough,” I answered, laugh- 
ing, “ for I have been forced to move further into 
the fells for the absolute peace which I require.” 

“ Have you, then, built a house upon the fells ? ” 
she asked, arching her eyebrows. 

“ I have, and hope within a few days to occupy 
it.” 

“ Ah, but that is triste,” she cried. “ And where is 
it, then, this house which you have built ? ” 

“It is over yonder,” I answered. “See that 
stream which lies like a silver band upon the "distant 
moor ? It is the Gaster Beck, and it runs through 
Gaster Fell.” 

She started, and turned upon me her great dark, 
questioning eyes with a look in which surprise, in- 
credulity, and something akin to horror seemed to 
be struggling for mastery. 

“ And you will live on the Gaster Fell ? ” she 
cried. 

“ So I have planned. But what do you know of 
Gaster Fell, Miss Cameron ? ” I asked. “ I had 
thought that you were a stranger in these parts.” 

“Indeed, I have never been here before,” she 
answered. “ But I have heard my brother talk of 
these Yorkshire moors ; and, if I mistake not, I have 
heard him name this very one as the wildest and 
roost savftgQ of them alL” 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 301 

Very likely,” said I, carelessly. “ It is indeed a 
dreary place.” 

“ Then why live there ? ” she cried, eagerly. 
“ Consider the loneliness, the barrenness, the want of 
all comfort and of all aid, should aid be needed.” 

“Aid! What aid should be needed on Caster 
Fell?” 

She looked down and shrugged her shoulders. 
“ Sickness may come in all places,” said she. “ If 
I were a man, I do not think I would live alone on 
Caster Fell.” 

“I have braved worse dangers than that,” said 
I, laughing ; “ but I fear that your picture will be 
spoiled, for the clouds are banking up, and already 
I feel a few rain-drops.” 

Indeed, it was high time we were on our way to 
shelter, for even as I spoke there came the sudden, 
steady swish of the shower. Laughing merrily, my 
companion threw her light shawl over her head, 
and, seizing picture and easel, ran with the lithe 
grace of a young fawn down the furze-clad slope, 
while I followed after with camp-stool and paint- 
box. 

* * * ^ ^ * 

Deeply as my curiosity had been aroused by this 
strange waif which had been cast up in our West 
Riding hamlet, I found that with fuller knowledge 
of her my interest was stimulated rather than 
satisfied. Thrown together as we were, with no 
thought in common with the good people who sur- 
rounded us, it wa^s not long before a friendship and 


302 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


confidence arose between us. Together we strolled 
over the moors in the morniugs, or stood upon the 
Moorstone Crag to watch the red sun sinking be- 
neath the distant waters of Morecambe. Of her- 
self she spoke frankly and without reserve. Her 
mother had died young, and her youth had been 
spent in the Belgian convent from which she had 
just finally returned. Her father and one brother, 
she told me, constituted the whole of her family. 
Yet, when the talk chanced to turn upon the causes 
which had brought her to so lonely a dwelling, a 
strange reserve possessed her, and she would either 
relapse into silence or turn the talk into another 
channel. For the rest, she was an admirable com- 
panion — sympathetic, well read, with the quick, 
piquant daintiness of thought which she had brought 
with her from her foreign training. Yet the shadow 
which I had observed in her on the first morning 
that I had seen her Avas never far from her mind, 
and I have seen her merriest laugh frozen suddenly 
upon her lips, as though some dark thought lurked 
within her, to choke down the mirth and gaiety of 
her youth. 

It was the eve of my departure from Kirkby* 
Malhouse that we sat upon the green bank in the 
garden, she with dark, dreamy eyes looking sadly out 
over the somber fells ; while I, Avith a book upon my 
knee, glanced covertly at her lovely profile, and 
marveling to myself hoAV tAventy years of life could 
have stamped so sad and Avistful an expression 
upon it. 

♦‘You have read much?” I remarked at last. 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 


303 


^ Women have opportunities now such as their 
mothers never knew. Have you ever thought of 
going further — or seeking a course of college or 
even a learned profession ? ” 

She smiled wearily at the thought. 

“ I have no aim, no ambition,” she said. “ My 
future is black— confused — a chaos. My life is like 
to one of these paths upon the fells. You have 
seen them. Monsieur Upperton. They are smooth 
and straight and clear where they begin ; but soon 
they wind to left and wind to right, and so mid 
rocks and over crags until they lose themselves in 
some quagmire. At Brussels my path was straight ; 
but now, mon Dieu! who is there can tell me where 
it leads ? ” 

“ It might take no prophet to do that. Miss Cam* 
eron,” quoth I, with the fatherly manner which two 
score years may show toward one. “ If I may read 
your life, I would venture to say that you were des- 
tined to fulfil the lot of women — to make some 
good man happy, and to shed around, in some wider 
circle, the pleasure which your society has given me 
since first I knew you.” 

“ I will never marry,” said she, with a sharp de- 
cision, which surprised and somewhat amused me. 

“ Hot marry — and why ? ” 

A strange look passed over her sensitive features, 
and she plucked nervously at the grass on the bank 
beside her. 

“ I dare not,” said she in a voice that quivered 
with emotion. 

“ Dare not?” 


304 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ It is not for me. I have other things to do. 
That path of which I spoke is one which I must 
tread alone.’^ 

“ But this is morbid,” said 1. “ Why should your 

lot, Miss Cameron, be separate from that of my 
own sisters, or the thousand other young ladies 
whom every season brings out into the world ? 
But perhaps it is that you have a fear and distrust 
of mankind. Marriage brings a risk as well as a 
happiness.” 

“ The risk would be with the man who married 
me,” she cried. And then in an instant, as though 
she had said to much, she sprung to her feet and 
drew her mantle round her. “ The night air is 
chill, Mr. Upperton,” said she, and so swept swiftly 
away, leaving me to muse over the strange words 
which had fallen from her lips. 

I had feared that this woman’s coming might 
draw me from my studies, but never had I antici- 
pated that my thoughts and interests could have 
been changed in so short a time. I sat late that 
night in my little study, pondering over my future 
course. She was young, she was fair, she was al- 
luring, both from her own beauty and from the 
strange mystery that surrounded her. And yet 
what was she, that she should turn me from the 
high studies that filled my mind, or change me 
from the line of life which I had marked out for 
myself? I was no boy, that I should be swayed 
and shaken by a dark eye or a woman’s smile, and 
yet three days had passed and my work lay where 
I had left it. Clearly, it was time that I should 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 305 

go. I set my teeth and vowed that another day 
should not have passed before I should have snapped 
this newly formed tie, and sought the lonely retreat 
which awaited me upon the moors. Breakfast was 
hardly over in the morning before a peasant dragged 
up to the door the rude hand-cart which was to 
convey my few personal belongings to my new 
dwelling. My fellow-lodger had kept her room; 
and steeled as my mind was against her influence, 
I was yet conscious of a little throb of disappoint- 
ment that she should allow me to depart without a 
word of farewell. My hand-cart with its load of 
books had already started, and I, having shaken 
hands with Mrs. Adams, was about to follow it, 
when there was a quick scurry of feet on the stair, 
and there she was beside me all panting with her 
own haste. 

“ Then you go — you really go ? ” said she. 

“ My studies call me.” 

‘‘ And to Gaster Fell ? ” she asked. 

“ Yes ; to the cottage which I have built there.” 

‘‘ And you will live alone there ? ” 

“With my hundred companions who lie in that 
cart.” 

“ Ah, books ! ” she cried, with a pretty shrug of her 
graceful shoulders. “But you will make me a 
promise ? ” 

“ What is it ? ” I asked, in surprise. 

“It is a small thing. You will not refuse me?” 

“ You have but to ask it.” 

She bent forward her beautiful face with an ex- 
pression of the most intense earnestness. “ You 
20 


THE SIGN OP THE POUR. 


will bolt your door at night ? ” said she ; and was 
gone ere I could say a word in answer to her ex- 
traordinary request. 

It was a strange thing for me to find myself at last 
duly installed in my lonely dwelling. Forme, now, 
the horizon was bounded by the barren circle of 
wiry, unprofitable grass, patched over with furze 
bushes and scarred by the profusion of Nature’s 
gaunt and granite ribs. A duller, wearier waste I 
have never seen ; but its dulness was its very 
charm. What was there in the faded, rolling hills, 
or in the blue, silent arch of heaven to distract my 
thoughts from the high thoughts which engrossed 
them ? I had left the drove of mankind, and had 
wandered away, for better or worse, upon a side 
path of my own. With tliem I had hoped to leave 
grief, disappointment, and emotion, and all other 
petty human weaknesses. To live for knowledge, 
and knowledge alone, that was the highest aim which 
life could offer. And yet upon the very first night 
which I spent at Gaster Fell there came a strange 
incident to lead my thoughts back once more to the 
world which I had left behind me. 

It had been a sullen and sultry evening, with 
great livid cloud-banks mustering in the west. As 
the night wore on, the air within my little cabin be- 
came closer and more oppressive. A weight seemed 
to rest upon my brow and my chest. From far 
away the low rumble of thunder came moaning 
over the moor. Unable to sleep, I dressed, and 
sending at my cottage door, looked on the black 
r Mtude which surrounded me. There was no breeze 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 307 

below ; but above, the clouds were sweeping majes- 
tically across the sky, with half a moon peeping at 
times between the rifts. The ripple of the Gaster 
Beck and the dull hooting of a distant owl were the 
only sounds which broke upon my ear. Taking the 
narrow sheep-path which ran by the stream, I 
strolled along it for some hundred yards, and had 
turned to retrace my steps, when the moon was finally 
buried beneath an ink-black cloud, and the darkness 
deepened so suddenly that I could see neither the path 
at my feet, the stream upon my right, nor the rocks 
upon my left. I was standing groping about in the 
thick gloom, when there came a crash of thunder 
with a flash of lightning which lighted up the whole 
vast fell, so that every bush and rock stood out clear 
and hard in the livid light. It was but for an in- 
stant, and yet that momentary view struck a thrill 
of fear and astonishment through me, for in my very 
path, not twenty yards before me, there stood a 
woman, the livid light beating upon her face and 
showing up every detail of her dress and features. 
There was no mistaking those dark eyes, that tall, 
graceful figure. It was she — Eva Cameron, the 
woman whom I thought I had forever left. For an 
instant I stood petrified, marveling whether this 
could indeed be she, or whether it was some figment 
conjured up by my excited brain. Then I ran swiftly 
forward in the direction where I had seen her, call- 
ing loudly upon her, but without reply. Again I 
called, and again no answer came back, save the 
melancholy wail of the owl. A second flash illumi- 
nated the landscape, and the moon burst out from 


308 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


behind its cloud. But I could not, though I climbed 
upon a knoll which overlooked the whole moor, see 
any sign of this strange midnight wanderer. For 
an hour or more I traversed the fell, and at last found 
myself back at my little crbin, still uncertain as to 
whether it had been a woman or a shadow upon 
which I gazed. 

For the three days which followed this midnight 
storm, I bent myself doggedly to my work. From 
early morn till late at night I immured myself in 
my little study, with my ' /hole thoughts buried in 
my books and my parchments. At last it seemed 
to me that I had reached that haven of rest, that 
oasis of study for which I had so often sighed. But, 
alas ! for my hopes and iriy plannings ! Within a 
week of my flight from Kirkby-Malhouse a strange 
and most unforeseen series of events not only broke 
in upon the calm of my existence, but filled me 
with emotions so acute as to drive all other consid- 
erations from my mind. 


CHAPTER III. 

OF THE GRAY COTTAGE IN THE GLEN, 

It was either on the fourth or the fifth day after 
I had taken possession of my cottage that I was 
astonished to hear footsteps upon the grass outside, 
quickly followed by a crack, as from a stick, upon 
the door. The explosion of an infernal machine 
would hardly have surprised or discomfited me mora 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 309 

I had hoped to have shaken off all intrusion forever, 
yet here was somebody beating at my door with as 
little ceremony as if it had been a village ale-house 
Hot with anger, I flung down my book, withdrew 
the bolt just as my visitor had raised his stick to 
renew his rough application for admittance. He 
was a tall, powerful man, tawny-bearded and deep- 
chested, clad in a loose-fitting suit of tweprl, cut for 
comfort rather than elegance. As he stood in the 
shimmering sunlight, I took in every feature of his 
face. The large, fleshy nose ; the steady blue eyes, 
with their thick thatch of overhanging brows ; the 
broad forehead, all knitted and lined with furrows, 
which were strangely at variance with his youthful 
bearing. In spite of his weather-stained felt hat, 
and the colored handkerchief slung round his mus- 
cular brown neck, I could see at a glance he was a 
man of breeding and education. I had been pre- 
pared for some wandering shepherd or uncouth 
tramp, but this apparition fairly disconcerted me. 

“You look astonished,” said he, with a smile. 
“ Did you think, then, that you were the only man 
in the world with a taste for solitude ? You see 
that there are other hermits in the wilderness 
b(5sides yourself.” 

“ Do you mean to say that you live here ? ” 1 
asked in no conciliatory voice. 

“ Up yonder,” he answered, tossing his hmd back- 
ward. “ I thought as we were neighbors, Mr. Upper- 
ton, that I could mot do less than look in and see if 
I could assist you in any way.” 

“ Thank you,” said I, coldly, standing with my 


310 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


hand upon the latch of the door. “ I am a man of 
simple tastes, and you can do nothing for me. You 
have the advantage of me in knowing my name.” 

He appeared to be chilled by my ungracious 
manner. 

‘‘ I learned it from the masons who were at work 
here,” he said. “ As for me, I am a surgeon, the 
surgeon of Gaster Fell. That is the name I have 
gone by in these parts, and it serves as well as 
another.” 

“ Not much room for practise here ? ” I observed. 

“ Not a soul except yourself for miles on either 
side.” 

“ You appear to have had need of some assistance 
yourself ? ” I remarked, glancing at a broad white 
splash, as from the recent action of some powerful 
acid, upon his sunburnt cheek. 

“That is nothing,” he answered, curtly, turning 
his face half round to hide the mark. “ I must get 
back, for I have a companion who is waiting for 
me. If I can ever do anything for you, pray let me 
know. You have only to follow the beck upward 
for a mile or so to find my place. Have you a bolt 
on the inside of your door ? ” 

“ Yes,” I answered, rather startled at this ques- 
tion. 

“Keep it bolted, then,” he said. ‘^The fell is a 
strange place. You never know who maybe about. 
It is as well to be on the safe side. Good-by.” 
He raised his hat, turned on his heel, and lounged 
away along the bank of the little stream. 

I was still standing with my hand upon the latch^ 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER PELL. SH 

gazing after my unexpected visitor, when I be- 
came aware of yet another dweller in the wilder- 
ness. Some distance along the path which the 
stranger was taking there lay a great gray boulder, 
and leaning against this was a small, wizened man, 
who stood erect as the other approached, and ad- 
vanced to meet him. The two talked for a minute 
or more, the taller man nodding his head frequently 
in my direction, as though describing what had 
passed between us. Then they walked on together, 
and disappeared in a dip of the fell. Presently I 
saw them ascending once more some rising ground 
further on. My acquaintance had thrown his arm 
round his elderly friend, either from affection or 
from a desire to aid him up the steep incline. The 
square, burly figure and its shriveled, meager com- 
panion stood out against the sky-line, and, turning 
their faces, they looked back at me. At the sight, 
I slammed the door, lest they should be encouraged 
to return. But when I peeped from the window 
some minutes afterward, I perceived that they were 
gone. 

For the remainder of that day I strove in vain to 
recover that indifference to the world and its ways 
which is essential to mental abstraction. Do what 
I would, my thoughts ran upon the solitary surgeon 
and his shriveled companion. What did he mean by 
his question as to my bolt ? and how came it that 
the last words of Eva Cameron were to the same 
sinister effect. Again and again I speculated as to 
what train of causes could have led two men so dis- 
similar in age and appearance to dwell together on 


312 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


the wild, inhospitable fells. Were they, like myself, 
Immersed in some engrossing study ? or could it be 
that a companionship in crime had forced them from 
the haunts of men ? Some cause there must be, and 
that a potent one, to induce the man of education 
to turn to such an existence. It was only now that 
I began to realize that the crowd of the city is in- 
finitely less disturbing than the unit of the country. 

All day I bent over the Egyptian papyrus upon 
which I was engaged ; but neither the subtile reason- 
ings of the ancient philosopher of Memphis, nor 
the mystic meaning which lay in his pages, could 
raise my mind from the things of earth. Evening 
was drawing in before I threw my work aside in 
despair. My heart was bitter against this man for 
his intrusion. Standing by the beck which purled 
past the door of my cabin, I cooled my heated brow, 
and thought the matter over. Clearly it was the 
small mystery hanging over these neighbors of mine 
which had caused my mind to run so persistently 
on them. That cleared up, they wmuld no longer 
cause an obstacle to my studies. What was to 
hinder me, then, from walking in the direction of 
their dwelling, and observing for myself, without 
permitting them to suspect my presence, what 
manner of men they might be ? Doubtless, their 
mode of life would be found to admit of some simple 
and prosaic explanation. In any case, the evening 
was fine, and a walk would be bracing for mind and 
body. Lighting my pipe, I set off over the moors 
in the direction which they had taken. 'The sun 
lay low and red in the west, flushing the heather 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. S12t 

with a deeper pink, and mottling the broad heaven 
with every hue, from the palest green at the zenith, 
to the richest crimson along the fair horizon. It 
might have been the great palette upon which the 
world-painter had mixed his primeval colors. On 
either side, the giant peaks of Ingleborough and 
Pennigent looked down upon the gray, melancholy 
country w’hich stretches betw^een them. As I acl- 
ranced, the rude fells ranged themselves upon right 
and left, forming a well-defined valley, down the 
center of Avhich meandered the little brooklet. On 
either side, parallel lines of gray rock marked the 
level of some ancient glacier, the moraine of which 
had formed the broken ground about my dwelling. 
Eagged boulders, precipitous scarps, and twisted, 
fantastic rocks, all bore witness to the terrible 
power of the old ice-field, and showed where its 
frosty fingers had ripped and rent the solid lime- 
stones. 

About half-way down this wild glen there stood 
a small clump of gnarled and stunted oak-trees. 
From behind these, a thin dark column of smoke 
rose into the still evening air. Clearly this marked 
the position of my neighbor’s house. Trending 
away to the left, I was able to gain the shelter of 
a line of rocks, and so reach a spot from which I 
could command a view of the building without ex- 
posing myself to any risk of being observed. It 
was a small, slate-covered cottage, hardly larger 
than the boulders among which it lay. Like my 
own cabin, it showed signs of having been con- 
structed for the use of soiue shepherd ; but, unlike 


314 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


mine, no pains had been taken by the tenants to 
improve and enlarge it. Two little peeping win- 
dows, a cracked and weather-beaten door, and a 
discolored barrel for catching the rain-water, were 
the only external objects from which I might draw 
deductions as to the dwellers within. Yet even in 
these there was food for thought; for as I drew 
nearer, still concealing myself behind the ridge, I 
saw that thick bars of iron covered the windows, 
while the old door was slashed and plated with the 
same metal. These strange precautions, together 
with the wild surroundings and unbroken solitude, 
gave an indescribably ill omen and fearsome charac- 
ter to the solitary building. Thrusting my pipe into 
my pocket, I crawled upon my hands and knees 
through the gorse and ferns until I was within a 
hundred yards of my neighbor’s door. There, find- 
ing that I could not approach nearer without fear of 
detection, I crouched down, and set myself to watch. 

I had hardly settled into my hiding-place, when 
the door of the cottage swung open, and the man 
who had introduced himself to me as the surgeon of 
Gaster Fell came out, bareheaded, with a spade in 
his hands. In front of the door there Avas a small 
cultivated patch containing potatoes, pease, and other 
forms of green stuff, and here he proceeded to busy 
himself, trimming, Aveeding, and arranging, sing- 
ing the while in a powerful though not very musi- 
cal voice. He was all engrossed in his work, Avith 
his back to the cottage, when there emerged from the 
half-open door the same attenuated creature whom 
I had seen in the morning. I could perceive now 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 31 ^ 

that he was a man of sixty, wrinkled, bent, and fee* 
ble, with sparse, grizzled hair, and long, colorless face. 
With a cringing, sidelong gait, he shuffled toward his 
companion, who was unconscious of his approach 
until he was close upon him. His light footfall or 
his breathing may have finally given notice of his 
proximity, for the worker sprung round and faced 
him. Each made a quick step toward the other, as 
though in greeting, and then — even now I feel the 
horror of the instant — the tall man rushed upon and 
knocked his companion to the earth, then whipping 
up his body, ran with great speed over the interven- 
ing ground and disappeared with his burden into the 
house. 

Case-hardened as I was by my varied life, the sud- 
denness and violence of the thing made me shudder. 
The man’s age, his feeble frame, his humble and dep- 
recating manner, all cried shame against the deed. 
So hot was my anger, that I was on the point of 
striding up to the cabin, unarmed as I was, when 
the sound of voices from within showed me that the 
victim had recovered. The sun had sunk beneath 
the horizon, and all was gray, save a red feather in the 
cap of Pennigent. Secure in the failing light, I ap- 
proached near and strained my ears to catch what 
was passing. I could hear the high, querulous voice 
of the elder man, and the deep, rough monotone of 
his assailant, mixed with a strange metallic jangling 
and clanking. Presently the surgeon came out, lock- 
ing the door behind him, and stamped up and down 
in the twilight, pulling at his hair and brandishing 
his arms, like a man demented. Then he set off: 


316 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


walking rapidly up the valley, and I soon lost sight 
of him among the rocks. When the sound of his 
feet had died away in the distance, I drew nearer 
to the cottage. The prisoner within was still pour- 
ing forth a stream of words, and moaning from time 
to time like a man in pain. These words resolved 
themselves, as I approached, into prayers — shrill, 
voluble prayers, pattered forth with the intense 
earnestness of one who sees impending an imminent 
danger. There was to me something inexpressibly 
awesome in this gush of solemn entreaty from the 
lonely sufferer, meant for no human ear, and jarring 
upon the silence of the night. I was still ponder- 
ing whether. I should mix myself in the affair or 
not, when 1 heard in the distance the sound of the 
surgeon’s returning footfall. At that I drew my- 
self up quickly by the iron bars and glanced in 
through the diamond-paned window. The interior 
of the cottage was lighted up by a lurid glow, com- 
ing from what I afterward discovered to be a 
chemical furnace. By its rich light I could distin- 
guish a great litter of retorts, test-tubes, and con- 
densers, which sparkled over the table, and threw 
strange, grotesque shadows on the wall. On the 
further side of the room was a wooden frame- work 
resembling a hencoop, and in this, still absorbed in 
prayer, knelt the man whose voice I heard. The red 
glow beating upon his upturned face made it stand 
out from the shadow like a painting from Rem- 
brandt, showing up every wrinkle upon the parch- 
ment-like skin. I had but time for a fleeting 
glance; then dropping from the window I made 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FECL. 317 

off through the rocks and the heather, nor slackened 
my pace until I found myself back in my cabin once 
more. There I threw myself upon my couch, more 
disturbed and shaken than I had ever thought to 
feel again. 

Long into the watches of the night I tossed and 
tumbled on my uneasy pillow. A strange theory 
had framed itself within me, suggested by the elabo- 
rate scientific apparatus which I had seen. Could 
it be that this surgeon had some profound and un- 
holy experiments on hand, which necessitated the 
taking, or at least the tampering with the life of 
his companion ? Such a supposition would account 
for the loneliness of his life ; but how could I rec- 
oncile it with the close friendship which had ap- 
peared to exist between the pair no longer ago than 
that very morning ? Was it grief or madness which 
had made the man tear his hair and wring his 
hands when he emerged from the cabin? And 
sweet Eva Cameron, was she also a partner to this 
somber business? Was it to my grim neighbors 
that she made her strange nocturnal journeys ? and 
if so, what bond could there be to unite so strangely 
assorted a trio ? Try as I might, I could come to 
no satisfactory conclusion upon these points. When 
at last I dropped into a troubled slumber, it was 
only to see once more in my dreams the strange 
episodes of the evening, and to wake at dawn un- 
refreshed and weary. 

Such doubts as I might have had as to whether I 
had indeed seen my former fellow-lodger upon the 
night of the thunder-storm, were finally resolved 


818 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


that morning. Strolling along down the path 
which led to the fell, I saw in one spot where the 
ground was soft the impressions of a foot — the 
small, dainty foot of a welh booted woman. That 
tiny heel and high instep could have belonged to 
none other than my companion of Kirkby-Malhouse. 
I followed her trail for some distance till it lost 
itself among hard and stony ground ; but it still 
pointed, as far as I could discern it, to the lonely 
and ill-omened cottage. What power could there 
be to draw this tender girl, through wind and rain 
and darkness, across the fearsome moors to that 
strange rendezvous? 

But why should I let my mind run upon such 
things? Had I not prided myself that I lived a 
life of my own, beyond the sphere of my fellow- 
mortals? Were all my plans and my resolutions to 
be shaken because the ways of my neighbors were 
strange to me ? It was unworthy, it was puerile. 
By constant and unremitting effort, I set myself to 
cast out these distracting influences, and to return 
to my former calm. It was no easy task. But 
after some days, during which I never stirred from 
my cottage, I had almost succeeded in regaining 
my peace of mind, when a fresh incident whirled 
my thoughts back into their old channel. 

I have said that a little beck flowed down the 
valley and past my very door. A week or so after 
the doings which I have described, I was seated by 
my window, when I perceived something white 
drifting slowly down the stream. My flrst thought 
was that it was a drowning sheep ; but picking up 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 319 

my stick, I strolled to the bank and hooked it ashora 
On examination it proved to be a large sheet, torn 
and tattered, with the initials J. C. in the corner. 
What gave it its sinister significance, however, was 
that from hem to hem it was all dabbled and dis- 
colored with blood. In parts where the water had 
soaked it, this was but a discoloration ; while in 
others the stains showed they were of recent origin. 
I shuddered as I gazed at it. It could but have come 
from the lonely cottage in the glen. What dark 
and violent deed had left this gruesome trace be- 
hind it? I had flattered myself that the human 
family was as nothing to me, and yet my whole 
being was absorbed now in curiosity and resentment. 
How could I remain neutral when such things were 
doing within a mile of me? I felt that the old 
Adam was too strong in me, and that I rmist solve 
this mystery. Shutting the door of my cabin be- 
hind me, I set off up the glen in the direction of the 
surgeon’s cabin. I had not gone far before I per- 
ceived the very man himself. He was walking 
rapidly along the hill-side, beating the furze bushes 
with a cudgel and bellowing like a madman. Indeed, 
at the sight of him, the doubts as to his sanity which 
had arisen in my mind were strengthened and con- 
firmed. As he approached, I noticed that his left 
arm was suspended in a sling. On perceiving me, 
he stood irresolute, as though uncertain whether to 
come over to me or not. I had no desire for an in- 
terview with him, however ; so I hurried past him, 
on which he continued on his way, still shouting 
and striking about with his club. When he had 


820 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


disappeared over the fells, I made my way down to 
his cottage, determined to find some clew to what 
had occurred. I was surprised, on reaching it, to 
find the iron-plated door flung wide open. The 
ground immediately outside it was marked with the 
signs of a struggle. The chemical apparatus within 
and the furniture were all dashed about and shat- 
tered. Most suggestive of all, the sinister wooden 
cage was stained with blood-marks, and its unfor- 
tunate occupant had disappeared. My heart was 
heavy for the little man, for I was assured I should 
never see him in this world more. There were 
many gray cairns of stones scattered over the valley. 
I ran my eye over them, and wondered which of 
them concealed the traces of this last act which 
ended the long tragedy. 

There was nothing in the cabin to throw any 
light upon the identity of my neighbors. The room 
was stuffed with chemicals and delicate philosophi- 
cal instruments. In one corner, a small book-case 
contained a choice selection of works of science. 
In another was a pile of geological specimens col- 
lected from the limestone. My eye ran rapidly 
over these details ; but I had no time to make a 
more thorough examination, for I feared lest the 
surgeon should return and find me there. Leaving 
the cottage, I hastened homeward with a weight at 
my heart. A nameless shadow hung over the lonely 
gorge — the heavy shadow of unexpiated crime, 
making the grim fells look grimmer, and the wild 
moors more dreary and forbidding. My mind 
wavered whether I should send to Lancaster to ao 


THE SURGEON OP GASTER FELL. 


321 


quaint the police of what I had seen. My thoughts 
recoiled a,t the prospect of becoming a witness in a 
comse celehre, and having an overbusy counsel or an 
officious press peeping and prying into my own 
modes of life. Was it for this I had stolen away 
from my fellow-mortals and settled in these lonely 
wilds ? The thought of publicity was repugnant to 
me. It was best, perhaps, to wait and watch with-- 
out taking any decided step until I had come to a 
more definite conclusion as to what I had heard. 

I caught no glimpse of the surgeon upon my 
homeward journey ; but when I reached my cottage, 
I was astonished and indignant to find that some- 
body had entered it in my absence. Boxes had been 
pulled out from under the bed, the curtains disar- 
ranged, the chairs drawn out from the wall. Even 
my study had not been safe from this rough in- 
truder, for the prints of a heavy boot were plainly 
visible on the ebony-black carpet. I am not a pa- 
tient man at the best of times ; but this invasion and 
systematic examination of my household effects 
stirred up every drop of gall in my composition. 
Swearing under my breath, I took my old cavalry 
saber down from its nail and passed my finger along 
the edge. There was a great notch in the center 
where it had jarred up against the collar-bone of a 
Bavarian artilleryman the day we beat Van Der 
Tann back from Orleans. It was still sharp enough, 
however, to be serviceable. I placed it at the head 
of my bed, within reach of my arm, ready to give 
a keen greeting to the next uninvited visitor who 
might arrive. 

21 


322 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


CHAPTER IV. 

OP THE MAN WHO CAME IN THE NIGHT. 

The night set in gusty and tempestuous, and the 
moon was all girt with ragged clouds. The wind 
blew in melancholy gusts, sobbing and sighing over 
the moor, and setting all the gorse-bushes a-groan- 
ing. From time to time a little sputter of rain 
pattered up against the window-pane. I sat until 
near midnight glancing over the fragment on im- 
mortality by lamblichus, the Alexandrian platonist, 
of whom the Emperor Julian said that he was 
posterior to Plato in time, but not in genius. At 
last, shutting up my book, I opened my door and 
took a last look at the dreary fell and still more 
dreary sky. As I protruded my head, a swoop of 
wind caught me, and sent the red ashes of my pipe 
sparkling and dancing through the darkness. At 
the same moment the moon shone brilliantly out 
from between two clouds, and I saw, sitting on the 
hill-side, not two hundred yards from my door, the 
man who called himself the surgeon of Gaster Fell. 
He was squatted among the heather, his elbows 
upon his knees, and his chin resting upon his hands, 
as motionless as a stone, with his gaze fixed steadily 
upon the door of my dwelling. 

At the sight of this ill-omened sentinel, a chill of 
horror and of fear shot through me, for his gloomy 
and mysterious associations had cast a glamour 
round the man, and the hour and place were in keep 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER PELL. 


323 


ing with his sinister presence. In a moment, how- 
ever, a manly glow of resentment and self-confidence 
drove this pretty emotion from my mind, and I 
strode fearlessly in his direction. He rose as I ap- 
proached, and faced me, with the moon shining on 
his grave, bearded face and glittering on his eye- 
balls. “ What is the meaning of this ? ” I cried, as 
I came upon him. “ What right have you to play 
the spy on me ? ” 

I could see the flush of anger rise on his face. 
“Your stay in the country has made you forget 
your manners,” he said. “ The moor is free to all.” 

“ You will say next that my house is free to all,” 
I said, hotly. “ You have had the impertinence to 
ransack it in my absence this afternoon.” 

He started, and his features showed the most in- 
tense excitement. “ I swear to you that I had no 
hand in it,” he cried. “ I have never set foot in 
your house in my life. Oh, sir, sir, if you will but 
believe me, there is a danger hanging over you, and 
you would do well to be careful.” 

“ I have had enough of you,” I said. “ I saw the 
cowardly blow you struck when you thought no 
human eye rested upon you. I have been to your 
cottage, too, and know all that it has to tell. If 
there is a law in England, you shall hang for what 
you have done. As to me, I am an old soldier, sir, 
and I am armed. I shall not fasten my door. 
But if you or any other villain attempt to cross my 
threshold, it shall be at your own risk.” With 
these words I swung round upon my heel and strode 
into my cabin. When I looked back at him from 


324 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


the door he was still looking at me, a gloomy figure 
among the heather, with his head sunk low upon his 
breast. I slept fitfully all that night ; but 1 heard 
no more of this strange sentinel without, nor was 
he to be seen when I looked out in the morning. 

For two days the wind freshened and increased 
with constant squalls of rain, until on the third night 
the most furious storm was raging which I can ever 
recollect in England. The thunder roared and 
rattled overhead, while the incessant lightning 
flashes illuminated the heavens. The wind blew in- 
termittently, now sobbing away into a calm, and 
then, of a sudden, beating and howling at my window- 
panes until the glasses rattled in their frames. The 
air was charged with electricity, and its peculiar 
influence, combined with the strange episodes with 
which I had been recently connected, made me mor- 
bidly wakeful and acutely sensitive. I felt that it 
was useless to go to bed, nor could I concentrate my 
mind sufficiently to read a book. I turned my lamp 
half down to moderate the glare, and leaning back 
in my chair, I gave myself up to reverie. I must 
have lost all perception of time, for I have no recol- 
lection how long I sat there on the border-land be- 
twixt thought and slumber. At last, about three or 
possibly, four o’clock, I came to myself with a start 
— nbt only came to myself, but with every sense 
and nerve upon the strain. Looking round my 
chamber in the dim light, I could not see anything 
to justify my sudden trepidation. The homely room 
the rain-blurred window, and the rude wooden door 
were all as they had been. I had begun to persuade 


I'HE SURGEON OF OASTER PELL. 3^5 

myself that some half-formed dream had sent that 
vague thrill through my nerves, when in a moment 
I became conscious of what it was. It was a sound 
— the sound of a human step outside my solitary 
cottage. 

Amid the thunder and the rain and the wind, I 
could hear it — a dull, stealthy footfall, now on the 
grass, now on the stones — occasionally stopping 
entirely, then resumed, and ever drawing nearer. I 
sat breathlessly, listening to the eerie sound. It had 
stopped now at my very door, and was replaced by 
a panting and gasping, as of one who has traveled 
fast and far. Only the thickness of the door sepa- 
rated me from this hard-breathing, light-treading 
night-walker. I am no coward ; but the wildness of 
the night, and the vague warning which I had had, 
and the proximity of this strange visitor, so unnerved 
me that my mouth was too dry for speech. I 
stretched out my hand, however, and grasped my 
saber, with my eyes still bent upon the door. I 
prayed in my heart that the thing, whatever it might 
be, would but knock or threaten or hail me, or give 
any clew as to its character. Any known danger 
was better than this awful silence, broken only by 
the rhythmic panting. 

By the flickering light of the expiring lamp I 
could see that the latch of my door was twitching, 
as though a gentle pressure was exerted on it from 
without. Slowly, slowly, it rose, until it was free 
of the catch, and then there was a pause of a quar- 
ter minute or more, while I still sat silent, with 
dilated eyes and drawn saber. Then, very slowly, 


326 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


the door began to revolve upon its hinges, and the 
keen air of the night came whistling through the 
slit. Very cautiously it was pushed open, so that 
never a sound came from the rusty hinges. As the 
aperture enlarged, I became aware of a dark, 
shadowy figure upon my threshold, and of a pale 
face that looked in at me. The features were 
human, but the eyes were not. They seemed to 
burn through the darkness with a greenish brilliancy 
of their own ; and in their baleful, shifty glare I 
was conscious of the very spirit of murder. Spring- 
ing from my chair, I had raised my naked sword, 
when, with a wild shouting, a second figure dashed 
up to my door. At its approach my shadowy visitant 
uttered a shrill cry, and fled away across the fells, 
yelping like a beaten hound. The two creatures • 
were swallowed up in the tempest from which they 
had emerged as if they were the very genii of the 
beating wind and the howling rain. 

Tingling with my recent fear, I stood at my door, 
peering through the night with the discordant cry 
of the fugitives still ringing in my ears. At that 
moment a vivid flash of lightning illuminated the 
whole landscape and made it as clear as day. By its 
light I saw far away upon the hill-side two dark 
figures pursuing each other with extreme rapidity 
across the fells. Even at that distance the contrast 
between them forbid all doubt as to their identity. 
The first was the small, elderly man whom 1 had 
supposed to be dead ; the second was my neighbor, 
the surgeon. For an instant they stood out clear 
and hard in the unearthly light ; in the next, the 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 


327 


darkness had closed over them, and they were gone. 

As I turned to re-enter my chamber, my foot rat- 
tied against something on my threshold. Stooping, 

I found it was a straight knife, fashioned entirely 
of lead, and so soft and brittle that it was a strange 
choice for a weapon. To render it more harmless, 
the top had been cut square off. The edge, how« 
ever, had been assiduously sharpened against a 
stone, as was evident from the markings upon it, so 
that it was still a dangerous implement in the grasp 
of a determined man. It had evidently dropped 
from the fellow’s hand at the moment when the 
sudden coming of the surgeon had driven him to 
flight. There could no longer be a doubt as to the 
object of his visit. 

And what was the meaning of it all? you ask. \ 
Many a drama which I have come across in my 
wandering life, some as strange and as striking as 
this one, has lacked the ultimate explanation which 
you demand. Fate is a grand weaver of tales ; but 
she ends them, as a rule, in defiance of all artistic 
laws, and with an unbecoming want of regard for 
literary propriety. As it happens, however, I have 
a letter before me as I write which I may add with- 
out comment, and which will clear all that may re- 
main dark. 




Kirkby Lunatic Asylum, 
« 4 , 1885 . 


« Sir, — I am deeply conscious that some apology 
and explanation is due to you for the very startling 
and, in your eyes, mysterious events which have 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 

recently occurred, and which have so seriously in- 
terfered with the retired existence which you desire 
to lead. I should have called upon you on the 
morning after the recapture of my father ; but my 
knowledge of your dislike to visitors, and also of 
— you will excuse my saying it — your very violent 
temper, led me to think that it was better to com- 
municate with you by letter. On the occasion of 
our last interview I should have told you what I 
tell you now ; but your allusions to some crime of 
which you considered me guilty, and your abrupt 
departure, prevented me from saying much that 
was on my lips. 

“ My poor father was a hard-working general 
practitioner in Birmingham, where his name is still 
remembered and respected. About ten years ago 
he began to show signs of mental aberration, which 
we were inclined to put down to overwork and the 
effects of a sunstroke. Feeling my own incompe- 
tence to pronounce upon a case of such importance, 
I at once sought the highest advice in Birmingham 
and London. Among others we consulted the emi- 
nent alienist, Mr. Fraser Brown, who pronounced 
my father’s case to be intermittent in its nature, 
but dangerous during the paroxysms. ‘ It may take 
a homicidal, or it may take a religious turn,’ he 
said ; ‘ or it may prove to be a mixture of both. 
For months he may be as well as you or me, and 
then in a moment he may break out. You will 
incur a great responsibility if you leave him without 
supervision.’ 

“ The result showed the justice of the specialist’s 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 


329 


diagnosis. My poor father’s disease rapidly assumed 
both a religious and homicidal turn, the attacks 
coming on without warning after months of sanity. 
It would weary you were I to describe the terrible 
experiences which his family have undergone. Suf- 
fice it that, by the blessing of God, we have suc- 
ceeded in keeping his poor crazed fingers clear of 
blood. My sister Eva I sent to Brussels, and I de- 
voted myself entirely to his case. He has an intense 
dread of madhouses ; and in his sane intervals would 
beg and pray so piteously not to be condemned to 
one, that I could never find the heart to resist him. 
At last, however, his attacks became so acute and 
dangerous that I determined, for the sake of those 
about me, to remove him from the town to the lone- 
liest neighborhood that I could find. This proved 
to be Gaster Fell ; and there he and I set up house 
together. 

“ I had a sufficient competence to keep me, and 
being devoted to chemistry, I was able to pass the 
time with a fair degree of comfort and profit. He, 
poor fellow, was as submissive as a child, when in 
his right mind ; and a better, kinder companion no 
man could wish for. We constructed together a 
wooden compartment, into which he could retire 
when the fit was upon him; and I had arranged 
the window and door so that I could confine him to 
the house if I thought an attack was impending. 
Looking back, I can safely say that no possible pre- 
caution was neglected; even the necessary table 
utensils were leaden and pointless, to prevent his 
doing mischief with them in his frenzy. 


330 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“ For months after our change of quarters he ap- 
peared to improve. Whether it was the bracing 
air, or the absence of any incentive to violence, he 
never showed during that time any signs of his ter- 
rible disorder. Your arrival first upset his mental 
equilibrium. The very sight of j^ou in the distance 
awoke all those morbid impulses which had been 
sleeping. That very evening he approached me 
stealthily with a stone in his hand, and would have 
slain me, had I not, as the lesser of two evils, struck 
him to the ground and thrust him into his cage be- 
fore he had time to regain his senses. This sudden 
relapse naturally plunged me into the deepest sor- 
row. For two days I did all that lay in my power 
to soothe him. On the third day he appeared to 
be calmer ; but, alas ! it was but the cunning of the 
madman. He had contrived to loosen two bars of 
his cage ; and when thrown off my guard by his ap- 
parent improvement — I was engrossed in my chemis- 
try — he suddenly sprung out at me, knife in hand. 
In the scuffle, he cut me across the forearm, and 
escaped from the hut before I recovered myself, nor 
could I find out which direction he had taken. My 
wound was a trifle, and for several days I wandered 
over the fells, beating through every clump of bushes 
in my fruitless search. I was convinced that he 
would make an attempt on your life, a conviction 
that was strengthened when I heard that some one 
in your absence had entered your cottage. I there- 
fore kept a watch over you at night. A dead sheep 
which I found upon the moor, terribly mangled, 
showed me that he was not without food, and that 


THE SURGEON OF GASTER FELL. 331 

the homicidal impulse was still strong in him. At 
last, as I had expected, he made his attempt upon 
you, which, but for my intervention, would have 
ended in the death of one or other of you. He ran^ 
and struggled like a wild animal ; but I was as des- 
perate as he, and succeeded in bringing him down 
and conveying him to the cottage. Convinced by 
this failure that all hope of permanent improve- 
ment was gone, I brought him next morning to this 
establishment, and he is now, I am glad to say, re- 
turning to his senses. 

“ Allow me once more, sir, to express my sorrow 
that you should have been subjected to this ordeal, 
and believe me to be faithfully yours, 

John Light Cameron. 

“ P. S. — My sister Eva bids me send you her kind 
regards. She told me how you were thrown together 
at Kirkby-Malhouse, and also that you met one 
night upon the fells. You will understand from 
what I have already told you that when my dear 
sister came back from Brussels I did not dare to 
bring her home, but preferred that she should lodge 
in safety in the village. Even then I did not ven- 
ture to bring her into the presence of her father, 
and it was only at night, when he was asleep, that 
we could plan a meeting.” 

And this was the story of this strange group whose 
path through life had crossed my own. From that 
last terrible night I have neither seen nor heard of 
any of theuii save for this one letter which 1 have 


332 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


transcribed. Still I dwell on Gaster Fell, and still 
my mind is buried in the secrets of the past. But 
when I wander forth upon the moor, and when I 
see the deserted little gray cottage among the rocks, 
my mind is still turned to the strange drama, and 
to the singular couple who broke in upon my soli- 
tude. 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 


Strange it is and wonderful to mark how upon 
this planet of ours the smallest and most insignifi* 
cant of events set a train of consequences in motion 
which act and react until their final results are por- 
tentous and incalculable. Set a force rolling, how- 
ever small, and who can say where it shall end, or 
wh9.t it may lead to ! Trifles develop into tragedies, 
and the bagatelle of one day ripens into the catas- 
trophe of the next. An oyster throws out a secre- 
tion to surround a grain of sand, and so a pearl comes 
into being ; a pearl diver fishes it up ; a merchant 
buys it and sells it to a jeweler, who disposes of it 
to a customer. The customer is robbed of it by two 
scoundrels, who quarrel over the booty. One slays 
the other, and perishes himself upon the scaffold. 
Here is a direct chain of events with a sick mollusk 
for its first link, and a gallows for its last one. Had 
that grain of sand not chanced to wash in between 
the shells of the bivalve, two living, breathing beings 
with all their potentialities for good and for evil 
would not have been blotted out from among their 
fellows. Who shall undertake to judge what is 
really small and what is great ? 


333 


334 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


Thus when in the year 1821, Don Diego Salvador 
bethought him that if it paid the heretics in Eng- 
land to import the bark of his cork oaks, it would 
pay him also to found a factory by which the corks 
might be cut and sent out ready made, surely at 
first sight no very vital human interests would ap- 
pear to be affected. Yet there were poor folk who 
would suffer, and suffer acutely —women who would 
weep, and men who would become sallow and hun- 
gry-looking and dangerous in places of which the 
don had never heard, and all on account of that one 
idea which had flashed across him as he strutted, 
cigarettiferous, beneath the grateful shades of his 
limes. So crowded is this old globe of ours, and so 
interlaced our interests, that one cannot think a new 
thought without some poor devil being the better 
or the worse for it. 

Don Diego Salvador was a capitalist, and the ab- 
stract thought soon took'the concrete form of a square, 
plastered building wherein a couple of hundred of 
his swarthy countrymen worked with deft, nimble 
fingers at a rate of pay which no English artisan 
could have accepted. Within a few months, the 
result of this new competition was an abrupt fall in 
prices in the trade, which was serious for the largest 
firms and disastrous for the smaller ones. A few 
old-established houses held on as they were, others 
reduced their establishments and cut down their ex- 
penses, while one or two put up their shutters and 
confessed themselves beaten. In this last unfortu- 
nate category was the ancient and respected firm 
of Fairbairn Brothers of Brisport, 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 


335 


Several causes had led up to this disaster, though 
Don Diego’s debut as a cork-cutter had brought 
matters to a head. When a couple of generations 
back, the original Fairbairn had founded the busi- 
ness, Brisport was a little fishing town with no out- 
let or occupation for her superfluous population. 
Men were glad to have safe and continuous work 
upon any terms. All this was altered now, for the 
town was expanding into the center of a large dis- 
trict in the west, and the demand for labor and 
its remuneration had proportionately increased. 
Again, in the old days, when carriage was ruinous 
and communication slow, the vintners of Exeter 
and of Barnstaple were glad to buy their corks 
from their neighbor of Brisport ; but now the large 
London houses sent down their travelers, who com- 
peted with each other to gain the local custom, 
until profits were cut down to the vanishing point. 
For a long time the firm had been in a precarious 
position, but this further drop in prices settled the 
matter, and compelled Mr. Charles Fairbairn, the 
acting manager, to close his establishment. 

It was a murky, foggy Saturday afternoon in 
November when the hands were paid for the last 
time, and the old building was to be finally aban- 
doned. Mr. Fairbairn, an anxious-faced, sorrow- 
worn man, stood on a raised dais by the cashier 
while he handed the little pile of hardly earned 
shillings and coppers to each successive workman 
as the long procession filed past his table. It was 
usual with the employees to clatter away the instant 
that they bad been paid, like so many children let 


336 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


out of school ; but to-day they waited, forming little 
groups over the great dreary room, and discussing 
in subdued voices the misfortune which had come 
upon their employers, and the future which awaited 
themselves. When the last pile of coins had been 
handed across the table, and the last name checked 
by the cashier, the whole throng faced silently 
round to the man who had been their master, and 
waited expectantly for any words which he might 
have to say to them. 

Mr. Charles Fair bairn had not expected this, and 
it embarrassed him. He had waited as a matter of 
routine duty until the wages were paid, but he was 
a taciturn, slow-witted man, and he had not fore- 
seen this sudden call upon his oratorical powers. 
He stroked his thin cheek nervously with his long 
white fingers, and looked down with weak, watery 
eyes at the mosaic of upturned, serious faces. 

“ I am sorry that we have to part, my men,” he 
said at last in a crackling voice. ‘‘ It’s a bad day 
for all of us, and for Brisport too. For three years 
we have been losing money over the works. We 
held on in the hope of a change coming, but matters 
are going from bad to worse. There’s nothing for 
it but to give it up before the balance of our for- 
tune is swallowed up. I hope you may all be able 
to get work of some sort before very long. Good- 
by, and God bless you ! ” 

“ God bless you, sir ! God bless you ! ” cried a 
chorus of rough voices. “ Three cheers for Mr. 
Charles Fairbairn ! ” shouted a bright-eyed, smart 
young fellow, springing upon a bench and waving 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 


SSI 

his peaked cap in the air. The crowd responded to 
the call, but their huzzas wanted the true ring which 
only a joyous heart can give. Then they began to 
flock out into the sunlight, looking back as they 
went at the long deal tables and the cork-strewn 
floor — above all at the sad-faced, solitary man, 
whose cheeks were flecked with color at the rough 
cordiality of their farewell. 

“ Huxford,” said the cashier, touching on the 
shoulder the young fellow who had led the cheer- 
ing, “ the governor wants to speak to you.” 

The workman turned back and stood swinging 
his cap awkwardly in front of his ex-employer, 
while the crowd pushed on until the doorway was 
clear, and the heavy fog wreaths rolled unchecked 
into the deserted factory. 

“ Ah, John I ” said Mr. Fairbairn, coming sud- 
denly out of his reverie and taking up a letter from 
the table. “ You have been in my service since you 
nere a boy, and you have shown that you merited 
the trust which I have placed in you. From what 
I have heard, I think I am right in saying that this 
sudden want of work will affect your plans more 
than it will many of my other hands.” 

“ I was to be married at Shrovetide,” the man 
answered, tracing a pattern upon the table with his 
horny forefinger. “ I’ll have to find work first.” 

“ And work, my poor fellow, is by no means easy 
to find. You see you have been in this groove all 
your life, and are unfit for anything else. It’s true 
you’ve been my foreman, but even that won’t help 
you, for the factories all over England are discharg- 


338 


THE SIGN OE THE FOUR. 


ing hands, and there’s not a vacancy to be had 
It’s a bad outlook for you and such as you.” 

“ What would you advise, then, sir ? ” asked John 
Huxford. 

“ That’s what I was coming to. I have a letter 
here from Sheridan & Moore, of Montreal, asking 
for a good hand to take charge of a work-room. If 
you think it will suit you, you can -^o out by the 
next boat. The wages are far in excess of anything 
which I have been able to give you.” 

‘‘ Why, sir, this is real kind of you,” the young 
workman said, earnestly. ‘‘ She — my girl — Mary, 
will be as grateful to you as I am. I know what 
you say is right, and that if I had to look for work 
I should be likely to spend the little that I have laid 
by toward housekeeping before I found it. But, 
sir, with your leave I’d like to speak to her about 
it before I made up my mind. Could you leave it 
open for a few hours ? ” 

“ The mail goes out to-morrow,” Mr. Fairbairn 
answered. “ If you decide to accept you can write 
to-night. Here is their letter, which will give you 
their address.” 

John Huxford took the precious paper with a 
grateful heart. An hour ago his future had been all 
black, but now this rift of light had broken in the 
west, giving promise of better things. He would 
have liked to have said something expressive of his 
feelings to his employer, but the English nature is 
not effusive, and he could not get beyond a few 
choking, awkward words which were as awkwardly 
received by his benefactor. With a scrape and a 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 339 

bow, he turned on his heel, and plunged out into the 
foggy street. 

So thick was the vapor that the houses over the 
way were only a vague loom, but the foreman hur- 
ried on with springy steps through side streets and 
winding lanes, past walls where the fishermen’s nets 
were drying, and over cobble-stoned alleys redolent 
of herring, until he reached a modest line of white- 
washed cottages fronting the sea. At the door of 
one of these the young man tapped, and then with- 
out waiting for a response, pressed down the latch 
and walked in. 

An old, silvery-haired woman and a young girl 
hardly out of her teens were sitting on either side 
of the fire, and the latter sprung to her feet as he 
entered. 

“ You’ve got some good news, John,” she cried 
putting her hands upon his shoulders, and looking 
into his eyes. “ I can tell it from your step. Mr. 
Fairbairn is going to carry on after all.” 

“ N^o, dear, not so good as that,” John Huxford 
answered, smoothing back her rich brown hair; 
‘‘ but I have an offer of a place in Canada, with 
good money, and if you think as I do, I shall go 
out to it, and you can follow with the granny when- 
ever I have made all straight for you at the other 
side. What say you to that, my lass ? ” 

“Why, surely, John, what you think is right 
must be for the best,” said the girl, quietly, with 
trust and confidence in her pale, plain face and lov- 
ing, hazel eyes. “ But poor granny, how is she to 
cross the seas ? ” 


840 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


“Oh, never mind about me,” the old woman 
broke in cheerfully. “ I’ll be no drag on you. If 
you want granny, granny’s not too old to travel ; 
and if you don’t want her, why, she can look after 
the cottage, and have an English home ready for 
you whenever you turn back to the old country.” 

“Of course we shall need you, granny,” John 
Huxford said, with a cheery laugh. “ Fancy leav. 
ing granny behind ! That would never do, Mary. 
But if you both come out, and if sre are married all 
snug and proper at Montreal, we’ll look through 
the whole city until we find a house something like 
this one, and we’ll have creepers on the outside just 
the same, and when the doors are shut and we sit 
around the fire on the winter’s nights, I’m hanged 
if we’ll be able to tell that we’re not at home. Be- 
sides, Mary, it’s the same speech out there, the same 
king, and the same flag ; it’s not like a foreign 
country.” 

“ ^NTo, of course not,” Mary answered with con- 
viction. She was an orphan with no living relation 
save her old grandmother, and no thought in life 
but to make a helpful and worthy wife to the man 
she loved. Where these two were she could not 
fail to find happiness. If John went to Canada, 
then Canada became home to her, for what had 
Brisport to offer when he was gone ? 

“ I’m to write to-night, then, and accept ? ” the 
young man asked. “ I knew you would both be of 
the same mind as myself, but of course I couldn’t 
close with the offer until we had talked it over. I 
can get started in a week or two, and then in a 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 


341 

couple of months I’ll have all ready for you on the 
other side.” 

“ It will be a weary, weary time until we hear from 
you, dear John,” said Mary, clasping his hand ; “ but 
it’s God’s will, and we must be patient. Here’s pen 
and ink. You can sit at the table and write the letter 
which is to take the three of us across the Atlantic.” 
Strange how Don Diego’s thoughts were molding 
human lives in the little Devon village. 

The acceptance was duly despatched, and John 
Huxford began immediately to prepare for his de- 
parture, for the Montreal firm had intimated that 
the vacancy was a certainty, and that the chosen 
man might come out ^vithout delay to take over his 
duties. In a very few days his scanty outfit ’was 
completed, and he started off in a coasting vessel for 
Liverpool, where he waste catch the passenger ship 
for Quebec. 

“ Eemember, J ohn,” Mary whispered, as he 
pressed her to his heart upon the Brisport quay, 
“ the cottage is our own, and come what may, we 
have always that to fall back upon. If things 
should chance to turn out badly over there, we 
have always a roof to cover us. There you will 
find me until you send word to us to come.” 

‘‘ And that will be very soon, my lass,” he an- 
swered, cheerfully, with a last embrace. “ Good- 
by, granny ; good-by.” The ship was a mile and 
more from the land before he lost sight of the 
figures of the straight, slim girl and her old com- 
panion, who stood watching and waving to him from 
the end of the gray stone quay. It was with a sink* 


342 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


ing heart and a vague feeling of impending disaster 
that he saw them at last as minute specks in the 
distance, walking townward and disappearing amid 
the crowd who lined the beach. 

From Liverpool the old woman and her grand- 
daughter received a letter from John announcing 
that he was just starting in the bark “ St. Law- 
rence,” and six weeks afterward a second longer 
epistle informed them of his safe arrival at Quebec, 
and gave them his first impressions of the country. 
After that a long unbroken silence set in. Week 
after week and month after month passed by, and 
never a word came from across the seas. A year 
went over their heads, and yet another, but no news 
of the absentee. Sheridan & Moore were written 
to, and replied that though John Huxford’s letter 
had reached them, he had never presented himself, 
and they had been forced to fill up the vacancy as 
best the}'' could. Still, Mary and her grandmother 
hoped against hope, and looked out for the letter- 
carrier every morning with such eagerness that the 
kind-hearted man would often make a detour rather 
than pass the two pale, anxious faces which peered 
at him from the cottage window. At last, three 
years after the young foreman’s disappearance, old 
granny died, and Mary was left alone, a broken, 
sorrowful woman, living as best she might on a 
small annuity which had descended to her, and eat- 
ing her heart out as she brooded over the mystery 
which hung over the fate of her lover. 

Among the shrewd west-country neighbors there 
had long, however, ceased to be any mystery in the 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 


345 


matter. Huxford arrived safely in Canada — so 
much was proved by his letter. Had he met with 
his end in any sudden way during the journey be- 
tween Quebec and Montreal, there must have been 
some ofl&cial inquiry, and his luggage would have 
sufficed to have established his identity. Yet the 
Canadian police had been communicated with, and 
had returned a positive answer that no inquest had 
been held, or any body found which could by any 
possibility be that of the young Englishman. The 
only alternative appeared to be that he had taken 
the first opportunity to break all the old ties, and 
had slipped away to the backwoods or to the States 
to commence life anew under an altered name. 
Why he should do this no one professed to know, 
but that he had done it appeared only too probable 
from the facts. Hence many a deep growl of 
righteous anger rose from the brawny smacksmen 
when Mary, with her pale face and sorrow-sunken 
head, passed along the quays on her way to her 
daily marketing ; and it is more than likely that if 
the missing man had turned up in Brisport he might 
have met with some rough words or rougher usage, 
unless he could give some very good reason for his 
strange conduct. This popular view of the case 
never, however, occurred to the simple, trusting 
heart of the lonely girl ; and as the years rolled by, 
her grief and her suspense were never for an instant 
tinged with a doubt as to the good faith of the 
missing man. From youth she grew into middle 
age, and from that into the autumn of her life, 
patient, long-suffering, and faithful, doing good as 


su 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


far as lay in her power, and waiting humbly until 
fate should restore, either in this world or the 
next, that which it had so mysteriously deprived 
her of. 

In the meantime neither the opinion held the 
minority, that John Huxford was dead, nor that of 
the majority, which pronounced him to be faithless, 
represented the true state of the case. Still alive, 
and of stainless honor, he had yet been singled out 
by fortune as her victim in one of those strange 
freaks which are of such rare occurrence, and so be- 
yond the general experience, that they might be 
put by as incredible, had we not the most trust* 
worthy evidence of their occasional possibility. 

Landing at Quebec, with his heart full of hope 
and courage, John selected a dingy room in a back 
street, where the terms were less exorbitant than else- 
where, and conveyed thither the two boxes which 
contained his worldly goods. After taking up his 
quarters there, he had half a mind to change again, 
for the landlady and the fellow-lodgers were by no 
means to his taste ; but the Montreal coach started 
within a day or two, and he consoled himself by the 
thought that the discomfort would only last for that 
short time. Having written home to Mary to an- 
nounce his safe arrival, he employed himself in seeing 
as much of the town as was possible, walking about 
all day, and only returning to his room at night. 

It happened, however, that the house on which 
the unfortunate youth had pitched was one which 
was notorious for the character of its inmates. He 
had been directed to it by a pimp, who found reg- 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 


345 


ular employment in hanging about the docks and 
decoying newcomers to this den. The fellow’s 
specious manner and proffered civility had led the 
simple-hearted west-countryman into the toils, and 
though his instinct told him that he was in unsafe 
compan}^ he refrained, unfortunately, from at once 
making his escape. He contented himself ' with 
staying out all day, and associating as little as pos- 
sible with the other inmates. From the few words 
which he did let drop, however, the landlady gathered 
that he was a stranger without a single friend in 
the country to inquire after him should misfortune 
overtake him. 

The house had an evil reputation for the hocus- 
sing of sailors, which was done not only for the 
purpose of plundering them, but also to supply outgo- 
ing ships with crews, the men being carried on board 
insensible, and not coming to until the ship was 
well down the St. Lawrence. This trade caused 
the wretches who followed it to be experts in the 
use of stupefying drugs, and they determined to 
practise their arts upon their friendless lodger, 
so as to have an opportunity of ransacking his 
effects, and of seeing Avhat it might be worth their 
while to purloin. During the day he invariably 
locked his door and carried off the key in his pocket, 
but if they could render him insensible for the night 
they could examine his boxes at their leisure, and 
deny afterward that he had ever brought with him 
the articles which he missed. It happened, there- 
fore, upon the eve of Huxford’s departure from 
Quebec, that he found, upon returning to his lodg- 


346 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


ings, that his landlady and her two ill-favored sons, 
who assisted her in her trade, were waiting up for 
him over a bowl of punch, which they cordially in- 
vited him to share. It was a bitterly cold night, 
and the fragrant steam overpowered any suspicions 
which the young Englishman may have entertained ; 
so he drained olf a bumper, and then, retiring to his 
bedroom, threw himself upon his bed without un- 
dressing, and fell straight into a dreamless slumber, 
in which he still lay when the three conspirators 
crept into his chamber, and, having opened his 
boxes, began to investigate his effects. 

It may have been that the speedy action of the 
drug caused its effect to be evanescent, or, perhaps, 
that the strong constitution of the victim threw it 
off with unusual rapidity. Whatever the cause, it 
is certain that John Huxford suddenly came to him- 
self, and found the foul trio squatted round their 
booty, which they were dividing into the two cate- 
gories of what was of value and should be taken, 
and what was valueless and might therefore be left. 
With a bound he sprung out of bed, and seizing the 
fellow nearest him by the collar, he slung him through 
the open doorway. His brother rushed at him, but 
the young Devonshire man met him with such a facer 
that he dropped in a heap upon the ground. Unfor- 
tunately, the violence of the blow caused him to 
overbalance himself, and, tripping over his prostrate 
antagonist, he came down heavily upon his face. 
Before he could rise, the old hag sprung upon his 
back and clung to him, shrieking to her son to bring 
the poker. John managed to shake himself clear of 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 347 

them both, but before he could stand on his guard, 
he was felled from behind by a crashing bloAv from 
an iron bar, which stretched him senseless upon the 
floor. 

“ You’ve hit too hard, Joe,” said the old woman, 
looking down at the prostrate figure. “ I heard the 
bone go.” 

‘‘ If I hadn’t fetched him down he’d ha’ been too 
many for us,” said the young villain, sulkily. 

“ Still, you might ha’ done it without killing him, 
clumsy,” said his mother. She had had a large 
experience of such scenes, and knew the difference 
between a stunning blow and a fatal one. 

“ He’s still breathing,” the other said, examining 
him ; “ the back o’ his head’s like a bag o’ dice 
though. The skull’s all splintered. He can’t last. 
What are we to do ? ” 

“ He’ll never come to himself again,” the other 
brother remarked. “ Sarve him right. Look at my 
face ! Let’s see, mother ; who’s in the house ? ” 

“ Only four drunk sailors.” 

“ They wouldn’t turn out for any noise. It’s all 
quiet in the street. Let’s carry him down a bit, Joe, 
and leave him there. He can die there, and no one 
think the worse of us.” 

“ Take all the papers out of his pocket, then,” the 
mother suggested ; “ they might help the police to 
trace him. His watch, too, and his money — £3 odd ; 
better than nothing. How carry him softly, and 
d<»n’t slip.” 

Kicking off their shoes, the two brothers carried 
tLj dying man down-stairs and along the deserted 


348 


THE SIGN OF THE i’OUR. 


street for a couple of hundred yards. There they 
laid him among the snow, where he was found by 
the night patrol, who carried him on a shutter to the 
hospital. He was duly examined by the resident 
surgeon, who bound up the wounded head, but gave 
it as his opinion that the man could not possibly live 
for more than twelve hours. 

Twelve hours passed, however, and yet another 
twelve, but John Huxford still struggled hard for 
his life. When at the end of three days he was 
found to be still breathing, the interest of the doc- 
tors became aroused at his extraordinary vitality, 
and they bled him, as the fashion was in those days^ 
and surrounded his shattered head with ice-bags. 
It may have been on account of these measures, or 
it may have been in spite of them, but at the end of 
a week’s deep trance the nurse in charge was aston- 
ished to hear a gabbling noise, and to find the stran- 
ger sitting up on the couch and staring about him 
with wistful, wondering eyes. The surgeons were 
summoned to behold the phenomenon, and warmly 
congratulated each other upon the success of their 
treatment. 

“ You have been on the brink of the grave, my 
man,” said one of them, pressing the bandaged head 
back on to the pillow ; “you must not excite your- 
self. What is your name ? ” 

Ho answer, save a wild stare. 

“ Where do you come from ? ” 

Again no answer. 

“ He is mad,” one suggested. “ Or a foreigner,’* 
»aid another. “ There were no papers on him when 


JOHN HUXFORD^S HIATUS. 349 

he came in. His linen is marked ‘ J. H.’ Let us 
try him in French and German.” 

They tested him with as many tongues as they 
could muster among them, but were compelled at 
last to give the matter over and to leave their silent 
patient still staring up wild-eyed at the whitewashed 
hospital ceiling. 

For many weeks John lay in the hospital, and for 
many weeks efforts were made to gain some clew 
as to his antecedents, but in vain. He showed, as 
the time rolled by, not only by his demeanor, but 
also by the intelligence with which he began to 
pick up fragments of sentences, like a clever child 
learning to talk, that his mind was strong enough 
in the present, though it was a complete blank 
as to the past. The man’s memory of his whole 
life before the fatal blow was entirely and ab- 
solutely erased. He neither knew his name, his 
language, his home, his business, nor anything else. 
The doctors held learned consultations upon him, 
and discoursed upon the center of memory and de- 
pressed tables, deranged nerve-cells and cerebral 
congestions, but all their polysyllables began and 
ended at the fact that the man’s memory was gone, 
and that it was beyond the power of science to re- 
store it. During the weary months of his convales- 
cence he picked up reading and writing, but with 
the return of his strength came no return of his for- 
mer life. England, Devonshire, Brisport, Mary, 
Granny — the words brought no recollection to his 
mind. All was absolute darkness. At last he was 
discharged, a friendless, tradeless, penniless man. 


350 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


without a past, and with very little to look to in the 
future. His very name was altered, for it had been 
necessary to invent one. John Huxford had passed 
away, and John Hardy took his place among man- 
kind. Here was a strange outcome of a Spanish 
gentleman’s tobacco-inspired meditations. 

John’s case had aroused some discussion and 
curiosity in Quebec, so that he was not suffered to 
drift into utter helplessness upon emerging from the 
hospital. A Scotch manufacturer named M’Kinlay 
found him a post as porter in his establishment, and 
for a long time he worked at seven dollars a week 
at the loading and unloading of vans. In the course 
of years it was noticed, however, that his memory, 
however defective as to the past, was extremely 
reliable and accurate when concerned with anything 
which had occurred since his accident. From the 
factory he was promoted into the counting-house, 
and the year 1835 found him a junior clerk at a 
salary of £120 a year. Steadily and surely John 
Hardy fought his way upward from post to post, 
with his whole heart and mind devoted to the busi- 
ness. In 1840 he Avas third clerk, in 1845 he was 
second, and in 1852 he became manager of the whole 
vast establishment, and second only to Mr. M’Kin- 
lay himself. 

There were few who grudged John this rapid 
advancement, for it was obviously due to neithei 
chance nor favoritism, but entirely to his marvelous 
powers of application and industry. From early 
morning until late in the night he labored hard in 
the service of his employer, checking, overlooking, 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 


351 


superintending, setting an example to all of cheer- 
ful devotion to duty. As he rose from one post to 
another his salary increased, but it caused no alter- 
ation in his mode of living, save that it enabled him 
to be more open-handed to the poor. He signalized 
his promotion to the managership by a donation of 
£1000 to the hospital in which he had been treated 
a quarter of a century before. The remainder of 
his earnings he allowed to accumulate in the busi- 
ness, drawing a small sum quarterly for his suste-^ 
nance, and still residing in the humble dwelling 
which he had occupied when he was a warehouse 
porter. In spite of his success he was a sad, silent, 
morose man, solitary in his habits, and possessed 
always of a vague, undefined yearning, a dull feel- 
ing of dissatisfaction and of craving which never 
abandoned him. Often he would strive with his 
poor crippled brain to pierce the curtain which 
divided him from the past, and to solve the enigma 
of his youthful existence, but though he sat many 
a time by the fire until his head throbbed with his 
efforts, John Hardy could never recall the least 
glimpse of John Huxford’s history. 

On one occasion he had, in the interests of the 
firm, to journey to Quebec, and to visit the very 
cork factory which had tempted him to leave Eng- 
land. Strolling through the work-room with the 
foreman, John automatically, and without knowing 
what he was doing, picked up a square piece of the 
bark, and fashioned it with two or three deft cuts 
of his penknife into a smooth, tapering cork. His 
companion picked it out of 'his hand and examined 


352 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


it with the eye of an expert. “ This is not the first 
cork which you have cut by many hundred, Mr. 
Hardy,” he remarked. “ Indeed you are wrong,” 
John answered, smiling ; “ I never cut one before 
in my life.” “ Impossible ! ” cried the foreman. 
“ Here’s another bit of cork. Try again.” John did 
his best to repeat the performance, but the brains 
of the manager interfered with the trained muscles 
of the cork-cutter. The latter had not forgotten 
their cunning, but they needed to be left to them- 
selves, and not directed by a mind which knew 
nothing of the matter. Instead of the smooth, 
graceful shape, he could produce nothing but rough* 
hewn, clumsy cylinders. “ It must have been 
chance,” said the foreman, “ but I could have sworn 
that it was the work of an old hand ! ” 

As the years passed, John’s smooth English skin 
had warped and crinkled until he' was as brown and 
as seamed as a walnut. Eis hair, too, after many 
years of iron-gray, had fir ally become as white as 
the winters of his adopted country. Yet he was a 
hale and upright old man, and when he at last re- 
tired from the managership of the firm with which 
he had been so long connecjted, he bore the weight 
of his seventy years lightly and bravely. He was 
in the peculiar position himself of not knowing his 
own age, as it was impossible for him to do more 
than guess at how old he was at the time of his 
accident. 

The Franco-German War came round, and while 
the two great rivals were destroying each other, 
their more peaceful neighbors were quietly ousting 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 


353 


them out of their markets and their commerce. 
Many English ports benefited by this condition of 
things, but none more than Brisport. It had long 
ceased to be a fishing village, but was now a large 
and prosperous town, with a great breakwater in 
place of the quay on which Mary had stood, and a 
frontage of terraces and grand hotels where all the 
grandees of the west country came when they were 
in need of a change. All these extensions had made 
Brisport the center of a busy trade, and her ships 
found their way into every harbor in the world. 
Hence it was no wonder, especially in that very busy 
year of 1870, that several Brisport vessels were lying 
in the river and alongside the wharves of Quebec. 

One day John Hardy, who found time hang a 
little on his hands since his retirement from busi- 
ness, strolled along by the water’s edge, listening 
to the clanking of the steam winches, and watching 
the great barrels and cases as they were swung 
ashore and piled upon the wharf. He had observed 
the coming in of a great ocean steamer, and having 
waited until she was safely moored, he was turning 
away, when a few words fell upon his ear, uttered 
by some one on board a little weather-beaten bark 
close by him. It was only some commonplace order 
that was bawled out, but the sound fell upon the 
old man’s ears with a strange mixture of disuse and 
familiarity. He stood by the vessel and heard the 
seamen at their work, all speaking with the same 
broad, pleasant, jingling accent. Why did it send 
such a thrill through his nerves to listen to it ? He 
sat down upon a coil of rope and pressed his hands 


S54 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


to his temples, drinking in the long-forgotten dia^ 
lect, and trying to piece together in his mind the 
thousand half-formed, nebulous recollections which 
were surging up in it. Then he rose, and walking 
along to the stern, he read the name of the ship, 
the “ Sunlight,” Brisport. Brisport ! Again that 
flush and tingle through every nerve. Why was 
that word and the men’s speech so familiar to him ? 
He walked moodily home, and all night he lay toss- 
ing and sleepless, pursuing a shadowy something 
which was ever within his reach, and yet which 
ever evaded him. 

Early next morning he was up and down on the 
wharf, listening to the talk of the west-country 
sailors. Every word they spoke seemed to him to 
revive his memory and bring him nearer to the 
light. From time to time they paused in their 
work, and seeing the white-haired stranger sitting 
so silently and attentively, they laughed at him, 
and broke little jests upon him. And even these 
jests had a familiar sound to the exile, as they very 
well might, seeing that they were the same which 
he had heard in his youth, for no one ever makes a 
new joke in England. So he sat through the long 
day, bathing himself in the west-country speech, and 
waiting for the light to break. 

And it happened that when the sailors broke off 
for their midday meal, one of them, either out of 
curiosity or good nature, came over to the old 
watcher and greeted him. So John asked him to 
be seated on a log by his side, and began to put 
many questions to him about the country from 


JOHN HUXFORD'S HIATUS. 


355 


which he came, and the town. All which the man 
answered glibly enough, for there is nothing in the 
world that a sailor loves to talk of so much as of 
his native place, for it pleases him to show that he 
is no mere w^anderer, but that he has a home to re- 
ceive him whenever he shall choose to settle down 
to a quiet life. So the seaman prattled away about 
the town hall and the Martellow Tower, and the 
Esplanade, and Pitt Street and the High Street, 
until his companion suddenly shot out a long, eager 
arm and caught him by the wrist. “ Look here, 
man,” he said in a low, quick whisper. “ Answer 
me truly as you hope for mercy. Are not the 
streets that run out of the High Street, Fox Street, 
Caroline Street, and George Street, in the order 
named ? “ They are,” the sailor answered, shrink- 

ing away from the wild, flashing eyes. And at that 
moment John’s memory came back to him, and he 
saw, clear and distinct, his life as it had been and 
as it should have been, with every minutest detail 
traced as in letters of fire. Too stricken to cry out, 
too stricken to weep, he could only hurry away 
homeward, wildly and aimlessly — hurry as fast as 
his aged limbs would carry him, as if, poor soub 
there were some chance yet of catching up the fifty 
years which had gone by. Staggering and tremu- 
lous, he hastened on until a film seemed to gather 
over his eyes, and throwing his arms into the air 
with -a great cry, Oh, Mary, Mary ! Oh, my lost, 
lost life ! ” he fell senseless upon the pavement. 

The storm of emotion which had passed through 
him, and the mental shock which he had undergonej 


366 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


would have sent many a man into a raging fever* 
but John was too strong-willed and too practical to 
allow his strength to be wasted at the very time 
when he needed it most. Within a few days he 
realized a portion of his property, started for JS'ew 
York, and caught the first mail steamer to England. 
Day and night, night and day, he trod the quarter- 
deck, until the hardy sailors watched the old man 
with astonishment, and marveled how any human 
being could do so much upon so little sleep. It v as 
only by this unceasing exercise, by wearing down 
his vitality until fatigue brought lethargy, that he 
could prevent himself from falling into a very frenzy 
of despair. He hardly dared ask himself what was 
the object of this wild journey ? What did he ex- 
pect? Would Mary be still alive? She must be 
a very old woman. If he could but see her and 
mingle his tears with hers, he would be content. 
Let her only know that it had been no fault of his, 
and that they had both been victims to the same 
cruel fate. The cottage was her own, and she had 
said that she would wait for him there until she 
heard from him. Poor lass ! she had never reck- 
oned on such a Avait as this. 

At last the Irish lights were sighted and passed. 
Land’s End lay like a blue fog upon the water, and 
the great steamer ploAved its way along the bold 
Cornish coast until it dropped its anchor in Ply- 
mouth Bay. John hurried to the raihvay station, 
and within a few hours he found himself back once 
more in his native town, Avhich he had quitted, a 
poor cork-cutter, half a century before. 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 


357 


But was it the same town ? Were it not for the 
name engraved all over the station and on the hotels, 
John might have found a difficulty in believing it. 
The broad, well-paved streets, wdth the tram lines 
laid down the center, were very different from the 
narrow, winding lanes which he could remember. 
The spot upon which the station had been built was 
now the very center of the town, but in the old 
days it w^ould have been far out in the fields. In 
every direction lines of luxurious villas branched 
away in streets and crescents bearing names which 
were new to the exile. Great warehouses, and long 
rows of shops with glittering fronts, showed him 
how enormously Brisport had increased in wealth 
as well as in dimensions. It was only when he 
came upon the old High Street that J ohn began to 
feel at home. It was much altered, but still it was 
recognizable, and some few of the buildings were 
just as he had left them. There was the place where 
Fair bairn’s cork works had been. It was now oc- 
cupied by a great, brand-new hotel. And there was 
the old gray town hall. The wanderer turned down 
beside it, and made his way with eager steps but a 
sinking heart in the direction of the line of cottages 
which he used to know so well. 

It was not difficult for him to find where they 
had been. The sea at least was as of old, and from 
it he could tell where the cottages had stood. But 
alas ! where w^ere they now ? In their place an im- 
posing crescent of high stone houses reared their 
tall fronts to the beach. John Avalked wearily down 
past their palatial entrances, feeling heart-sore and 


858 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


despairing, when suddenly a thrill shot through him. 
followed by a warm glow of excitement and of hope, 
for, standing a little back from the line, and looking 
as much out of place as a bumpkin in a ball-room, 
was an old whitewashed cottage with wooden porch, 
and walls bright with creeping plants. He rubbed 
his eyes and stared again, but there it stood with 
its diamond-paned windows and white muslin cur- 
tains, the very same, down to the smallest details, 
as it had been on the day when he last saw it. 
Brown hair had become white, and fishing hamlets 
had changed into cities, but busy hands and a faith- 
ful heart had kept granny’s cottage unchanged, and 
ready for the wanderer. 

And now, when he had reached his very haven 
of rest, John Huxford’s mind became more filled 
with apprehension than ever, and he became so 
deadly sick that he had to sit down upon one of 
the beach benches which faced the cottage. An 
old fisherman was perched at one end of it, smok- 
ing his black clay pipe, and he remarked upon the 
wan face and sad eyes of the stranger. 

“You have overtired yourself,” he said. “It 
doesn’t do for old chaps like you and me to forget 
our years.” 

“I’m better now, thank you,” John answered. 
“Can you tell me, friend, how that one cottage 
came among all those fine houses ? ” 

“ Wh}^,” said the old fellow, thumping his crutch 
energetically upon the ground, “ that cottage be- 
longs to the most obstinate woman in all England. 
That woman, if you’ll believe me, has been offered 


JOHN HtrXFORD’S HIATUS. 


359 


the price of the cottage ten times over, and yet she 
won’t part with it. They have even promised to 
remove it stone by stone, and put it up on some more 
convenient place, and pay her a good round sum 
into the bargain, but God bless you ! she wouldn’t 
so much as hear of it.’’ 

“ And why was that ? ” asked John. 

‘‘Well, that’s just the funny part of it. It’s all 
on account of a mistake. You see, her spark went 
away when I was a youngster, and she’s got it into 
her head that he may come back some day, and that 
he won’t know where to go unless the cottage is 
there. Why, if the fellow were alive, he would 
be as old as you, but I’ve no doubt he’s dead long 
ago. She’s well quit of him, for he must have been 
a scamp to abandon her as he did.” 

“ Oh, he abandoned her, did he ? ” 

“ Yes — went off to the States, and never so much 
as sent a word to bid her good-by. It was a cruel 
shame, it was, for the girl has been a- waiting and 
a-pining for him ever since. It’s my belief that 
it’s fifty years’ weeping that blinded her.” 

“She is blind!” cried John, half rising to his 
feet. 

“Worse than that,” said the fisherman. “She’s 
mortal ill, and not expected to live. Why, look ye, 
there’s the doctor’s carriage a- waiting at her door.” 

At these evil tidings, old John sprung up, and 
hurried over to the cottage, where he met the phy- 
sician returning to his brougham. 

“ How is your patient, doctor ? ” he asked in a 
trembling voice. 


360 


THE SIGN OP THE FOUR. 


“Very bad, very bad,” said the man of medicine, 
pompously. “ If she continues to sink she will be 
in great danger ; but if, on the other hand, she takes 
a turn, it is possible that she may recover ; ” with 
which oracular answer he drove away in a cloud of 
dust. 

John Huxford was still hesitating at the door- 
way, not knowing how to announce himself, or 
how far a shock might be dangerous to the sufferer, 
W’hen a gentleman in black came bustling up. 

“ Can you tell me, my man, if this is where the 
sick woman is ? ” he asked. 

John nodded, and the clergyman passed in, leav- 
ing the door half open. The wanderer waited until 
he had gone into the inner room, and then slipped 
into the front parlor, where he had spent so many 
happy hours. All was the same as ever, down to 
the smallest ornaments, for Mary had been in the 
habit, whenever anything was broken, of replacing 
it with a duplicate, so that there might be no change 
in the room. He stood irresolute, looking about 
him, until he heard a woman’s voice from the inner 
chamber, and stealing to the door, he peeped in. 

The invalid was reclining upon a couch, propped 
up with pillows, and her face was turned full to- 
ward John as he looked round the door. He could 
have cried out as his eyes rested upon it, for there 
were Mary’s pale, plain, sweet, homely features as 
smooth and as unchanged as though she were still 
the half child, half woman whom he had pressed to 
his heart on the Brisport quay. Her calm, eventless, 
unselfish life had left none of those rude traces upon 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 


361 


her countenance which are the outward emblems of 
internal conflict and an unquiet soul. A chaste mel- 
ancholy had refined and softened her expression, 
and her loss of sight had been compensated for by 
that placidity which comes upon the faces of the 
blind. With her silvery hair peeping out beneath 
her snow-white cap, and a bright smile upon her 
sympathetic face, she was the old Mary improved 
and developed, with something ethereal and angelic 
superadded. 

“ You will keep a tenant in the cottage,” she was 
saying to the clergyman, who sat with his back turned 
to the observer. “ Choose some poor, deserving 
folk in the parish who will be glad of a home free. 
And when he comes you will tell him that I have 
waited for him until I have been forced to go on, 
but that he will find me on the other side still faith- 
ful and true. There’s a little money, too — only a 
few pounds — but I should like him to have it when 
he comes, for he may need it, and then you will tell 
the folk you put in to be kind to him, for he will be 
grieved, poor lad, and to tell him that I was cheerful 
and happy up to the end. Don’t let him know that 
1 ever fretted, or he may fret too.” 

Now John listened quietly to all this from behind 
the door, and more than once he had to put his hand 
to his throat, but when she had finished, and when he 
thought of her long, blameless, innocent life, and saw 
the dear face looking straight at him, and yet unable 
to see him, it became too much for his manhood, and 
he burst out into an irrepressible, choking sob which 
shook his very frame. And then occurred a strange 


362 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


thing, for though he had spoken no word, the old 
woman stretched out her arms to him, and cried, 
“ Oh, Johnny, Johnny ! Oh, dear, dear Johnny, you 
have come back to me again ; ” and before the parson 
could at all understand Avhat had happened, those 
two faithful lovers were in each other’s arms, weep- 
ing over each other, and patting each other’s silvery 
head, with their hearts so full of joy that it almost 
compensated for all that weary fifty years of 
waiting. 

It is hard to say how long they rejoiced together. 
It seemed a very short time to them and a very long 
one to the reverend gentleman, who was thinking at 
last of stealing away, when Mary recollected his 
presence and the courtesy which was due to him. 
“ My heart is full of joy, sir,” she said ; ‘‘ it is God’s 
Avill that I should not see my Johnny, but I can call 
his image up as clear as if I had my eyes. Now 
stand up, John, and I will let the gentleman see how 
well I remember you. He is as tall, sir, as the 
second shelf, as straight as an arrow, his face brown 
and his eyes bright and clear. His hair is well-nigh 
black, and his mustache the same — I shouldn’t won- 
der if he had whiskers as well by this time. Now, sir, 
don’t you think I can do without my sight ? ” The 
clergyman listened to her description, and looking 
at the battered, white-haired man before him, he 
hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry. 

But it all proved to be a laughing matter in the 
end, for, whether it was that her illness had taken 
some natural turn, or that John’s return had 
startled it away, it is certain that from that day 


JOHN HUXFORD’S HIATUS. 363 

Mary steadily improved uptil she was as well as 
ever. “No special license for me,” John had said 
sturdily. “ It looks as if we were ashamed of what 
we are doing, as though we hadn’t the best right to 
be married of any two folk in the parish.” So the 
bans were put up accordingly, and three times it 
was announced that John Huxford, bachelor, was 
going to be united to Mary Howden, spinster, after 
which, no one objecting, they were duly married 
accordingly. “We may not have very long in this 
world,” said old John, “ but at least we shall start 
fair and square in the next.” 

John’s share in the Quebec business was sold out, 
and gave rise to a very interesting legal question as 
to whether, knowing that his name was Huxford, he 
could still sign that of Hardy, as was necessary for 
the completion of the business. It was decided, 
however, that on his producing two trustworthy 
witnesses to his identity all would be right, so the 
property was duly realized and produced a very 
handsome fortune. Part of this John devoted to 
building a pretty villa just outside Brisport, and the 
heart of the proprietor of Beach Terrace leaped 
within him when he learned that the cottage was at 
last to be abandoned, and that it would no longer 
break the symmetry and impair the effect of his 
row of aristocratic mansions. 

And there in their snug new home, sitting out on 
the lawn in the summer-time, and on either side of the 
fire in the winter, that worthy old couple continued 
for many years to live as innocently and as happily 
as two children. Those who knew them well say 


364 


THE SIGN OF THE FOUR. 


that there was never a shadow between them, and 
that the love which burned in their aged hearts was 
as high and as holy as that of any young couple who 
ever went to the altar. And through all the country 
round, if ever man or woman were in distress and 
fighting against hard times, they had only to go up 
to the villa to receive help, and that sympatliy 
which is more precious than help. 'So when at last 
John and Mary fell asleep in their ripe old age, 
within a few h ours of each other, they had all the 
poor and the needy and the friendless of the parish 
among their mourners, and in talking over the 
troubles which these two had faced so bravely, 
they learned that their own miseries also were but 
passing things, and that faith and truth can never 
miscarry, either in this existence or the next. 

THE END. 








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